Weird Tales v39n05 (1946 05)

" ■ ...

At the first sign
of a Cold

or Sore Throat

GARGLE
LISTERINE
ANTISEPTI

Y OU may help lessen a cold's severity or
head it off entirely if you take this delight-
ful precaution early and often, because . . .

Listerine Antiseptic kills millions of germs
called the "secondary invaders" ort mouth and
throat surfaces before they can stage a mass
invasion of throat tissues to produce a cold's
miserable symptoms.

Attack the Germs

Ordinarily the secondary invaders cause no
trouble. But .they can often get the upper hand
when body resistance is lowered by fatigue, wet
or cold feet, drafts, and sudden temperature
changes.

So we repeat: At the first symptom of trouble,
gargle with Listerine Antiseptic. Attack the
germs before they attack you.

Actual tests have shown germ reductions on mouth
and throat surfaces ranging up to 96.7% fifteen
minutes after a Listerine Antiseptic gargle , and up
to 80% an hour after.

This marked germ-killing action, we believe,
helps to explain Listerine Antiseptic’s impres-
sive test record in fighting colds.

Fewer Colds for Listerine Antiseptic
Users in Tests

Tests made over a period of twelve years showed

this remarkable record:

That those who gargled Listerine Antiseptic
twice daily had fewer colds and fewer sore
throats than those who did hot gargle. More-
over, when Listerine Antiseptic users did have
colds, they were usually milder and of shorter
duration.

Lambert Pharmacal Company, St. Louis, Mo.

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i

MAY, 1946

Cover by Ronald Clyne

NOVELETTES

THE VALLEY OF THE GODS Edmond Hamilton 8

Guarding this fabulous, legendary valley is a sinister
night — shrouded place of the dead

THREE IN CHAINS Seabury Quinn 30

Whoever it was — or whatever — watched us gloatingly

SHORT STORIES

MIDNIGHT Jack Snow 26

There was scarcely a forbidden book of shocking ceremonies
and nameless teachings that he had not consulted

THE MAN IN PURPLE Dorothy Quick 45

This accursed room had an aura of immeasurable menace —
a ghost come true

THE SMILING PEOPLE Ray Bradbury 52

Nothing is quite so horrible, so final as complete utter silence

ONCE THERE WAS AN ELEPHANT R. H. Phelps 58

You’ve heard of the old triangle — but suppose one of
the trio is an elephant!

RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY! Gardner F. Fox 68

His obsession sat like an evil witch astride his
thin shoulders, haunting him

THE SILVER HIGHWAY Harold Lawlor 78

There was a strange story connected with the Pope-Hartford
runabout and the exquisite girl who sat in it

FROZEN FEAR Robert Bloch 87*

A deep-freeze unit is like some monstrous beast that has just dined well

VERSE

THE HAUNTED STAIRS Yetza Gillespie 24

THE NIXIE’S POOL Leah Bodine Drake 66

SUPERSTITIONS AND TABOOS Irwin J. Weill 25

THE EYRIE AND THE WEIRD TALES CLUB

94

Except for personal experiences the contents of this magazine is fiction. Any use
of the name of any living person or reference to actual events is purely coincidental.

Published bi-monthly by Weird Tales, 9 Rockefeller Plaza, New York 20, N. Y. Reentered as second-class matter
January 26, 1940, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Single copies, 15 cents.
Subscription rates: One year in the United States and possessions, 90i?. Foreign and Canadian postage extra.
English Office: Charles Lavell, Limited, 4 Clements Inn, Strand London, W.C.2, England- The publishers are not
responsible for the loss of unsolicited manuscripts although every care will be taken of such material while in their
possession. Copyright, 1946. by Weird Tales. Copyrighted in Great Britain. — IT*

Title registered in U. S. Patent Office.

PRINTED IN THE V. S. A. Vol. 89. No. 6

D. McILWRAITH, Editor.

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G ARTH ABBOTT was vividly aware
of the danger for him in this
night-shrouded place of the dead.
He did not need the whispered warnings
of his nervous companion to tell him what
discovery of them here would mean.

It would mean, pretty certainly, the
abrupt death of a too-bold young Ameri-
can archaeologist in this obscure little vil-
lage on the Usumacinta River in upper
Guatemala. The primitive folk here would
deal swift vengeance to a foreigner whom
they caught desecrating their cemetery.

Jose Yanez, the guide whom Abbott had
picked up in Puerto Barrios, very obviously
realized that to the full. His flat, swarthy
face was pallid in the rays of their lantern.

“Senor Abbott, you don’t understand,”
he persisted. "These people are mostly
Indians, still savage. If they catdi us — ”
“They won’t — they’re all at the bade,”
Abbott retorted. "Here, give me the lan-
tern. You bring the crowbars.”

The rays of the old-fashioned lantern
vaguely illumined a jumble of ancient stone
crosses. Behind them rose the dark, squat
church, and farther behind was the market-
place from which rose a rhythmic dance
music of marimbas, flutes and drums.

Abbott had a rough native cloak slung
around his shoulders to ward off the night
dew, but his tawny head was bare. And as
he advanced through the solemn aisles of
ancient crosses, his strong, rawboned face
flared with excitement. He sensed himself
on the verge of great discovery.

The somber eeriness of the ancient grave-
yard did not affect him. He ignored the
evil-looking bush-vultures that boldly
roosted on the stone markers and eyed the

passing lantern like unclean spirits. Places
of death were no novelty to an archaeolo-
gist, and he was immune to superstition.

“That’s the mound just ahead!” he eager-
ly told his apprehensive companion.
"Quick, bring along the tools!”

The mound rose squat and black just
beyond the graveyard proper. It was a
grassy hillock a dozen feet high, whose
southern face had been partially washed
away by recent rains.

Abbott had noticed that earlier in the
day. His trained eyes had instantly fastened
on the great hewn stones whose edges were
exposed by the washout, and which bore
chiselled Mayan glyphs.

The hillock concealed a Mayan tumulus
of some sort. And Abbott had been set
afire by his glimpse of one group of glyphs
that spelled a magic name — the name
"Xibalba.”

Xibalba! That was the mythical lost
birthplace of the Mayas, the legendary val-
ley from which their strange race was fabled
to have come, two thousand years before!

Did that fabled valley really exist some-
where deep within the unexplored Guate-
malan mountain fastnesses? Many scholars
had thought so. Stephens himself, the great
pioneer of Mayan archaeology, had talked
with a man who claimed to have seen
Xibalba with his own eyes.

If lost Xibalba could be found, all the
riddles of the mysterious Mayan civiliza-
tion might be solved. The civilization that
long ago had reared its mighty monuments
and splendid stone cities from the lowlands
of Honduras to the jungles of Yucatan,
might then yield answers to the enigmas
that had puzzled modern men.

8

BY EDMOND HAMILTON

Heading by BORIS DOLGOV

10

WEIRD TALES

T HE mere fact that this tomb might be a
clue to Xibalba had set Garth Abbott
afire to excavate it. But when he had
asked permission from the priest of the
nearby church, he had met a check.

"I dare not permit that, senor! Pagan
superstition still runs deep in many of my
primitive flock, and that mound is to them
a sacred, forbidden spot. You would risk
your life by digging into it.”

Abbott had refused to give up. He had
told Yanez, "We’ll wait until tonight when
they’re all at the fiesta and open the mound
ourselves.”

"But when they find out what we have
done—” the Guatemalan had objected fear-
fully.

"They won’t find out. I'll simply make
flash-photos of all the inscriptions and then
close it up again till later.”

He had waited with intense eagerness all
that day for night and the fiesta to come,
feeling himself on the brink of a tremen-
dous archaeological discovery.

Xibalba! The legend-haunted name rang
in his mind like a golden bell. If he could
find that fabled shrine of the Mayan gods
and heroes, what might he not find there?

It had begun to rain softly now, as he
and Yanez set their lantern on the ground
and studied the raw earth side of the mound.
The yellow clay almost completely hid the
huge stones within.

Abbott estimated that the mound con-
tained a low, round rock vault, most of it
buried beneath the present ground-level.

“Clear that soil away — that’s it,” he di-
rected Yanez. "Now we’ll pry out one of
these stones and see if it opens a way into
the vault.”

The big block they attacked was in-
scribed with the worn Mayan glyphs. Again,
Abbott felt a leap of the pulse as he rec-
ognized the symbol for Xibalba — and also
the one for "Kukulcan.”

Kukulcan was the Mayan god of light
and thunder, the great Plumed Serpent.
Why was his symbol here? Abbott’s eager-
ness grew.

The block suddenly gave way and slid
out onto the wet clay. The lantern showed
them a yawning black cavity.

Quivering with excitement, Abbott
squirmed through the square opening. In

the darkness within, he lowered himself to
a stone floor. Yanez passed through the
lantern, and Abbott stared.

"Good God, what a find!”

The interior of the vault was a brilliant
little treasure-chamber of mystery.

Its chief object was a wonderful stone
sarcophagus, over which reared the coils
and grotesque head of the Plumed Serpent.

"The. serpent of Kukulcan! This is early
Mayan, all right. But the Mayans never
entombed anyone like this!”

He stared incredulously around the
chamber. Its walls were a brilliant pageant
of painted sculptures.

Not two thousand years had dimmed the
cunning color of those marching figures.
They were Mayan of the Old Empire s
earliest period, those columns of priests,
warriors and captains.

The pictured pageant represented a great
migration. Above the marching columns
of stiff figures extended a queer running
chart that showed mountains, ranges and
passes, a great river —

"That river’s the Usumacinta itself!”
ejaculated Abbott. "The configuration is
the same. Why, this is a picture-history of
the first great Mayan migration!”

He realized the vast importance of his
discovery. This long-buried vault was key
to the greatest mystery of Mayan archaeol-
ogy, the riddle of the people’s origin.

Eagerly, holding the lantern high, Garth
Abbott followed the story back around the
walls. The painted migration marched back,
up the Usumacinta and then northwestward
between two ranges that he knew must be
the Ollones and Chistango.

Its beginning was in a place represented
as a long, straight valley at the foot of a
square black mountain. Here was the rep-
resentation of a city. And here the glyphs
again spelled the magic name.

"Xibalba!” Abbott exclaimed. "The
Mayan valley of the gods! Why, with this
chart, I could find that valley!”

His excitement soared. On that painted
chart, in the valley of fabled Xibalba, he
perceived two curious dominating symbols.

One was the rearing, fiery plumed snake
of the god Kukulcan. The other was the
dark, bat-winged figure of Zotzilha, the
Mayan lord of evil. Black bat and plumed

THE VALLEY OF THE GODS

11

snake were pictured in deadly battle there
in the valley!

Yanez had lifted the stone lid of the
sarcophagus. "Senor, there is something in
this stone coffin!”

Abbott’s lantern spilled light into the
coffin. There was dust in it, dust that had
once been a man. But there was also the
gleam of gold ornaments jewelled with
jade.

A SWORD lay in the dust. It was a
weapon of the most ancient Mayan pat-
tern, a short, heavy copper sword edged
with brilliant saw-teeth of green obsidian.
The hilt was a miraculous carving of the
plumed serpent, whose eyes were two big
blazing emeralds.

Abbott eagerly picked the sword from
the dust. "Whoever was buried here must
have been a king, a great leader — ”

He stiffened, his voice trailing off. For
as his hand closed around the sword hilt,
his senses suddenly swam from shock.

Power, tangible and tingling force,
seemed rushing up into his arm and body
from the ancient sword!

A roar like the thunder of waves dinned
in Abbott’s ears. He seemed encompassed
by whirling mists, seemed to feel a vast
and alien personality somehow seize upon
his brain.

The mists abruptly darkened and before
him flashed a face! A dark, smooth, hand-
some face with heavy-lidded eyes, which in
spite of its unearthly beauty was somehow
— hideous.

Repulsion, horror and a bitter hatred
shook Abbott. Something in his mind, or
in that alien mind that had weirdly gripped
him, seemed to recognize that hovering face
in the darkness.

"Zotzilha Chimalman!” Abbott heard a
voice inside his brain flaring. "So you have
watched, evil one?”

Silver-sweet, mocking laughter chimed
from the handsome face before him. Its
heavy-lidded eyes were taunting, malicious.

"Aye, I have watched for I knew that
you would seek someday to return, Kukul-
can. But it is too late now!”

"Not while I live!” Abbott heard that
mental voice raging. "And I do live now,
and soon I will — ”

"Senor!”

Yanez’ cry had such horror in it that it
brought Garth Abbott back to awareness. He
found that he had dropped the sword.

He looked a little dazedly around the
low, lantern-lit tomb, and then at the
Guatemalan’s scared face.

"Senor, your face was strange,” shivered
Yanez. "It was like one of those!”

And he pointed at the fierce-faced war-
rior-priests pictured on the wall.

"I must have been dizzy, delirious, for
a moment," stammered Abbott. “The air
in this place is bad.”

He was still quivering from the weird-
ness of that momentary delusion, but he
forced it from his mind.

What the hell, Kukulcan and Zotzilha
were mere phantoms, the forgotten gods
of a people perished a thousand years ago!
The influences of this place had been too
much for his nerves, for a moment.

"Come on, Jose — we’ll make our photo-
graphs and get out of here.”

When they squirmed out of the vault a
half-hour later, Abbott brought with him
that strange sword.

Yanez looked wonderingly, almost fear-
fully, at him after they had replaced the
block.

"And now, senor?”

Abbott’s voice rang with excitement.
"Now I’ve got a clue archaeologists have
hunted for years — a clue to the lost heart-
land of the Mayas. We’re going to charter
a plane and search for Xibalba!”

But why was it, he wondered, that the
name of the fabled valley was no longer
golden and luring in his ears? Why was it
that the very name of Xibalba was now
somehow freighted with dread?

II

T HE plane was a stout little two-place job
which Abbott had chartered from an
air-express line in Barrios. It manfully
bucked the tricky currents which swirled
low over these blue scarps and ranges of
the vast hinterland.

Abbott had been a war pilot in the
Pacific, and hunting out an objective in un-
known terrain was nothing new to him.
But after hours of quartering the tumbled

12

WEIRD TALES

mountains northeast of the Usumacinta, he
had to admit himself baffled.

"The valley I’m hunting should be right
down there,” he said impatiently, pointing.
"But it just isn’t.”

Yanez looked skeptical. "The chart in
that tomb was made a very long time ago.”
"Mountains and valleys don’t shift
around,” Abbott retorted. "It should be
here. We’ll circle around again.”

He had carefully traced back the route
designated by the pictured chart in the
tomb — the route from Xibalba that had
been followed by the Mayans of long ago.
He had gone up beyond the Usumacinta,
northeast between the Ollones and Chis-
tango ranges, then on until he had spotted
the stark, square black mountain of the pic-
tures.

And the long, straight, narrow valley he
sought should be somehow in sight south
of that black mountain, but wasn’t. There
was nothing but a tumbled wilderness of
blue peaks and green forest.

Yanez was obviously uneasy. This hinter-
land was nearly all Lacandone country, and
those wild tribes weren’t hospitable to fliers
who make forced landings in their forests.

The Guatemalan presently uttered a
warning. "The sky is getting queer.”
Abbott abruptly realized that a strange
change had come over the heavens. All
around him the sky was growing strangely
dark. *

It was 'not the darkness of gathering
clouds. It was as though the light of the
sky was being conquered and submerged
by a surging darkness from nowhere.

It was like the weird vibrant darkness
that had momentarily enveloped his mind
in his strange experience in die tomb!

"Better get out of here!” Abbott ex-
claimed, banking around sharply. "It’s
some queer freak of weather — ”

Next moment, he realized their imminent
danger. Tie unnatural gloom had deepened
to such degree that he could barely make
out die stupendous peaks that rose about
them.

With a startled exclamation, Abbott
opened the throtde. There was absolutely
no wind, nodiing but an unholy stillness in
which the shadowy darkness gloomed and
thickened.

He took a course to avoid the great
square peak which he could no longer see.
Tien things happened swiftly.

A blinding flash of lightning seared
across the heavens and revealed the black
peak looming up just ahead of the plane!

Yanez yelled wildly, and Abbott jerked
hard at the controls. The plane started to
curve sharply about, but he had a sickening
realization that he was too late to avoid
crashing into die cliffs.

But a howling gust of storm-wind sud-
denly smote the little ship and flung it
bodily back from the looming cliffs.

"Good God!” he cried, as he fought the
controls. "If it hadn’t been for that storm-
gust— ”

Thunder crashed to drown his voice.
Sudden storm was unloosing its fury, spears
of terrific lightning tearing the unnatural
darkness to shreds, an inferno of winds rag-
ing around the little plane.

A GAIN and again, that strange darkness
closed in and left Abbott flying blind
amid those threatening peaks. And again
and again the lightning of the thunder-
storm ripped through the gloom.

Lightning that was like fiery serpents
writhing across the heavens, struggled
titanically with the black-winged darkness
that strove to annihilate them! So seemed
that infernal battle of the heavens to Abbott,
as he hundred over the controls.

A thin wail of terror came from the
Guatemalan as the plane sank sickeningly.
"The storm carries us downward!”

Abbott saw the altimeter needle rushing
bade. The plane was helpless in the grip
of the howling storm.

Again the fire-snakes uncoiled across the
sky.

By their flare, Abbott glimpsed the
earth below rushing wildly up at them.

Then he glimpsed something else — a
long, straight black line that looked like a
mere crack in the earth. It was a narrow
canyon, of unguessable depth, invisible from
ordinary altitudes.

"That’s the valley below!” he yelled.
"That long canyon must be Xibalba!”

“We fall!” yelled Yanez, eyes popping
from his head.

Invisible giant hands of the thunder-

THE VALLEY OF THE GODS

13

storm were dragging the laboring plane
down toward that canyon, down into it!

"Bail out!” he yelled to the Guatemalan.^
"We’re going to crash!”

He grabbed up his pack, scrambled to
the cabin door. He pushed Yanez out ahead
of him and then they were turning over
and over in the air as they plunged down-
ward.

Their parachutes puffed out.

As they fell amid lightning-torn wind
and blackness and thunder, Abbott had
dazed glimpses of lightning-illumined
scenes below.

He glimpsed forests, gardens, the walls
and terraces of a white stone city. Then
with a ripping of silk, the parachute let
him down through trees and brush. He felt
a shock, and then knew nothing.

When he recovered consciousness, Yanez
was bending anxiously over him. The
Guatemalan’s swarthy face was scratched,
and looked wild.

"Senor, I feared you dead!” he stuttered.
"This place — ”

Abbott sat up. Awe and wonder fell
upon him as he looked around.

There was no storm now. Quiet peace
reigned here in a green forest of fairylike
beauty. Tall ceibas, cedars and willows
waved in the balmy breeze, in a curiously
golden daylight.

Abbott looked up. The softened light
fell from the crack of sky high above, the
mouth of the canyon. Two miles above
his head it yawned, and the canyon itself
was only a mile in width.

"The merest crack in the surface of
earth!” he marvelled. "No wonder it’s
never been spotted by any plane.”

Sudden remembrance increased his ex-
citement. "I saw a city as we fell! A city,
here in Xibalba — ”

Yanez gripped his arm. "There are men
around us in the forest, senor. I have heard
them gathering.”

Abbott scrambled to his feet. As he did
so, from the trees around them stepped a
score of fantastic figures!

T O THE young archaeologist, it was as
though the remote past had suddenly
come to life. These were warriors of the
ancient Maya!

Copper-red, fierce-eyed men, their garb
and weapons matched the sculptures on the
walls of Chichen Itza and Uxmal and
Copan.

They wore wonderful headdresses of
brilliant red and green feathers, built upon
light wooden frameworks; short kirtles of
jaguar skin and sandals of the same hide;
belts of leather gemmed with jade and
emerald. Their arms were spears and
swords tipped with obsidian, like that
ancient sword in his pack.

“Mayans, of the oldest period!” whis-
pered Abbott, his brain rocking. "By
Heaven, the fabled valley, the city — is
living !”

Abbott felt a thrill only an archaeologist
could understand. For years, scholars had
dreamed of finding a lost, living remnant
of the old Mayan civilization.

Many a search had been made, in vain.
But the clue of the old tomb, and die thun-
derstorm that had swept them down into
this hidden canyon, had brought him into
the heart of such a survival.

Abbott spoke to the advancing warriors,
in the Mayan tongue that has remained al-
most unchanged through the centuries.

"We are — friends! We come from

above, from outside this valley!”

The warriors stopped, swords raised.
Upon the fierce face of their magnificently
attired captain came a look of incredulity.

“From outside? You are lying, stranger!
No man could descend the walls!”

"It is truth!” Abbott persisted. "Thun-
derstorm swept us down here — ”

The captain’s face stiffened. "You say
that thunderstorm brought you? That is
strange — that is very strange.”

Abbott could not understand what the
other meant. He watched the play of doubt
on that dark red face.

The captain finally spoke. "This matter
is not for my judgment. I, Vipal, am but a
captain in the guards of Ummax, the king.
You will come with us to Xibalba for his
judgment.”

"This is Xibalba, then?” cried Abbott
eagerly. "The valley of the gods, of Zot-
zilha and Kukulcan?”

His question had an amazing effect. The
Mayan warriors seemed to start, and into
Vipal' s yellow eyes leaped a fierce lighc.

14

WEIRD TALES

"Wh.it do you know of Kukulcan, stran-
gers?" he cried menacingly.

Abbott sensed that he had somehow
blundered badly. He should have known
better than to start asking questions so soon.

"I meant no harm," he said earnestly. "I
thought that Kukulcan, the Plumed Ser-
pent, the lord of thunder, was the greatest
of your gods."

"Repeat that blasphemy and you’ll not
live to reach Xibalba!” hissed Vipal.
"Come!”

Abbott, wondering, picked up his pack.
More and more, this whole experience
seemed dreamlike to him.

Two thousand years might have rolled
back for him, he thought. This buried
valley hidden in the mountain-guarded
wilderness lay untouched by time and
change.

But if these Mayans held true to the
ancient civilization, why had his mention
of Kukulcan so enraged them? Kukulcan
had been the most worshipped of die old
gods in the Mayan cities of long ago, had
been the thunder god, die enemy of dark
Zotzilha and his evil powers.

Yanez trudged beside him, the tall,
somber-eyed Mayan warriors marching on
eadi side of them. Before they had gone
far through the forest, they struck a broad-
trail that ran northward up the valley.

The forests were green and lovely. A
small river flowed down the valley and the
trail kept beside it. Looking up, Abbott
glimpsed at the north end of the canyon
the giant square black peak that blocked
its end. Its frowning cliffs loomed stark
and brutal.

He thought he could descry a massive
flight of stairs leading up the cliff to the
portaled entrance of a black-mouthed
cavern.

"What is that cavern in the distant moun-
tain?" he ventured to ask Vipal.

The captain looked at him stonily. "It is
a place which I think you will soon see,
stranger.”

The menace in the answer was clear, if
the meaning was not. Abbott felt more and
more enmeshed in mystery and danger.

The trail led them past a giant, ancient
stone pyramid-temple that rose in the
forest. It looked crumbling, neglected, a

terraced pyramid like the great temple at
Chichen tea.

Abbott glimpsed stone heads of gigantic
plumed serpents rearing from its terraces,
and realized it was the temple of Kukulcan.
Why was it so neglected, forsaken, aban-
doned to the forest?

Then that riddle passed from his mind
in a shock of wonder. The trail had
emerged from the forest. Before them, be-
yond gardens and orchards, rose the fantas-
tic white mass of the city Xibalba.

Ill

OLDEN light of the dying day struck
across the city. It was a mass of low,
flat-roofed white stucco structures which
were grouped around a central cluster of
sculptured stone palaces and pyramidal
shrines. Biggest of the palaces was a mas-
sive, oblong pile surrounded by porticoes
of giant columns, rich with grotesque carv-
ing.

Toward that barbarically magnificent
structure, Abbott and Yanez were led by
their fierce-eyed guards. As they entered
the paved streets, the American's fascinated
eyes beheld a vista of ancient Mayan life
such as he had never expected to witness.

Copper-skinned men and women of the
lower class were here in great numbers,
thronging to stare in wonder at Hie two
strangers. Farmers, potters, weavers, all
these were dressed both sexes alike in short
kirtles that left their bodies bare above the
waist. Here and there brilliant plumed cap-
tains and dark-robed priests stood out in the
throng.

They crossed wonderful gardens and
paved ball-courts to enter the massive
palace. Abbott guessed that a runner had
gone ahead of them, when they stepped into
die long, torchlit main hall.

For Ummax the king sat upon his throne
of carven wood awaiting them, and war-
riors, priests and women crowded the
room.

"Now, how came you into Xibalba,
strangers?” demanded the king of Abbott.
"Long has entrance to our valley been
blocked by the great landslides of long ago.”

Ummax was a giant of a man, his huge
limbs wrapped in magnificent jaguar skins

THE VALLEY OF THE GODS

15

and jewelled leather trappings, the brilliant
lumes of his fantastic headdress falling
alfway to the floor. He sat with a massive
black stone mace across his knees.

His dark red face was gross but stark
in its strength, with brutality and cunning
in his eyes as he glared at Abbott.

The captain Vipal spoke before Abbott
could answer. "They say that they were
brought down into the valley by thunder-
storm.”

A big warrior beside the throne, a griz-
zled, one-eyed, scarred-faced captain in
white plumes, uttered a loud exclamation.

"By thunderstorm? And this stranger is
fair of hair, as legend tells of — ”

The king Ummax interrupted fiercely.
"What you hint at is impossible, Huroc!
The man is lying!”

A girl beyond the grizzled, scarred war-
rior spoke quietly. "The man cannot be
lying when he has not yet spoken for him-
self.”

Abbott looked at her in wonder and
quick admiration. This Mayan princess
was a figure of wild, barbaric loveliness.

Her slim copper body had for garment
but a richly embroidered white linen kirtle,
fringed with jade beads. Her soft shoulders
and proud little breasts bare, her dark hair
crowned by an elaborate headdress, her
chiselled features and dark eyes had a com-
pelling allure.

Ummax had turned on her furiously.
"You, Shuima, are supporting Huroc in
hinting blasphemy! I tell you to beware!”

Abbott found his voice. "I do not under-
stand all this. It is true that storm brought
me here, yet I was searching for this valley
of Xibalba. I found a clue to its location in
a tomb far away.”

"A tomb?” mocked Ummax. "A tomb
that led you to Xibalba? All lies!”

He raised his hand. "Vipal, you will
take these two strangers to — ”

"I'm telling the truth!” Abbott broke in
desperately. And then he bethought him-
self of a half-proof he could show.

He stooped swiftly and tore open the
pack he had dropped at his feet. From it,
he drew that ancient, short, heavy sword.

"See, I found this sword in the tomb!
And there was an inscription, telling — ”

Abbott’s voice trailed off. A strange and

sudden change had corne over every human
being in the barbaric, torchlit hall.

Ummax, the big one-eyed captain Huroc,
the girl Shuima — they and everyone else
seemed stricken by a strange paralysis as
they stared at the ancient, heavy weapon in
Abbott’s hand.

"The sword of Kukulcan!” whispered
Huroc, his single eye wild, flaming with ex-
citement. "Then the Plumed One after-
all these ages has returned!”

Ummax bounded to his feet, towering
gigantic, clutching his great black mace as
he glared at Abbott.

"So it was the lord of thunder who
brought you here!” he hissed.

And then, abruptly, Abbott saw a strange
and awful change take place in Ummax’s
face.

It suddenly distorted into a wholly dif-
ferent face, into the handsome, heavy-lid-
ded, evil countenance that Abbott had con-
fronted in that strange vision in the tomb.

Darkness seemed to gloom and thicken
in the torchlit hall! Unearthly darkness,
something cold, alien, terrifying —

A ND then swiftly the handsome, evil
face was gone, and it was Ummax’
own brutal, raging countenance that looked
down at him.

Ummax seemed to struggle for control
over himself before he spoke.

"Stranger, that sword is — known, here,”
he said finally. "Your tale may be true. At
least, we welcome you as a guest until we
can speak further of these things.

"Conduct them to fitting quarters,” he
told Vipal jerkily. And then he added
fiercely, glaring around the awe-stricken
throng, "And let no blasphemous talk of
these things go abroad!”

Abbott, stunned and mystified, put the
sword back into his pack and with Yanez
followed the captain Vipal from the room.

The face of the tigerish Mayan warrior
looked ashen in the torchlight of the sculp-
tured corridors through which he led. He
bowed low as he ushered them into a long,
white-walled chamber.

"Food and drink will be brought you,
lords,” he said huskily, and withdrew.

Abbott looked wonderingly around the
torch-illumined room. Brilliant feather

16

WEIRD TALES

tapestries woven with familiar Mayan de-
signs hung from the walls. Low stools of
carven wood and bright woven mats were
the only furniture. Small barred windows
looked out into the night.

Quickly, serving-maids appeared with
colorful pottery trays and bowls and flagons.
The copper-skinned girls, fair bodies bare
to the waist, looked with extreme awe at
Abbott and Yanez as they set down their
burdens.

One, bowing low before him, seized his
hand and pressed it to her lips.

"Many in Xibalba have waited long for
Kukulcan’s return, lord!’' she whispered.

Abbott stared after them when they had
gone. "I’ll be damned! Because of that
sword and the thunderstorm, these people
have identified me somehow with their god
Kukulcan!”

"Gods of thunder and gods of evil —
this place is unholy, accursed!” exclaimed
Yanez, crossing himself.

The Guatemalan’s swarthy face was pale,
his hands shaking. Abbott slapped him re-
assuringly on the shoulder.

"Buck up, Jose. Just because they’re su-
perstitious is no reason why it should affect
us.”

"It is not just superstition, no!” said
Yanez feverishly. “You saw that devil-king
call hell’s demons to him there in the
throne-room! You saw his face, saw the
darkness that gathered — ”

"Hell, will you let a few grimaces and
a chance shadow scare you?” Abbott de-
manded impatiently. "We’ve found a won-
derful place, a place that will make us
famous. Forget all this nonsense of gods
and devils.”

But later, after they had eaten and were
stretched on soft mats in the darkened
chamber, Abbott found it not easy to for-
get.

He lay, watdiing the flickering gleam of
torchlight that came through the windows
from somewhere outside the palace, and
turning over and over in his mind the weird
situation into which he had stumbled.

W HY had the chance identification of
himself with Kukulcan roused in these
people such deep and opposed emotions, of
rage on the part of Ummax, of awe in

others, of fervent hope in some? What bad
happened there in the throne-room when
it had so strangely darkened?

Abbott did not realize that he had fallen
into exhausted slumber until he suddenly
awoke, alert and quivering. Then he heard
a slight, stealthy sound.

A dark shadow was stealing toward him,
bending over him. Instantly Abbott
bounded upward and fiercely gripped the
intruder.

He was thunderstruck to find himself
gripping slim, soft naked shoulders, with
perfumed hair against his face.

"Lord, it is I, Shuima!” whispered a
throbbing voice. "Strike not for I am not
your enemy!”

"Shuima? The princess in the throne-
room?” whispered Abbott, stunned. "What
the devil — ”

A bigger, dark figure crossed the torch-
light gleam from the window, and Yanez
awoke to utter a startled squawk.

"Quiet your friend or all is lost!” warned
Shuima swiftly. "It is Huroc, who has
come with me on this mission.”

Huroc? The grizzled one-eyed captain?
Abbott felt more and more mystified but
in a ha9ty whisper he silenced the Guate-
malan.

Shuima’s soft hand pulled him down to
the floor beside the window. By the dim
glimmer of light from outside, he could
descry her chiselled face and the scarred
mask of Huroc.

The girl was speaking quickly. "Lord,
Huroc and I have come thus by secret
stealth to your chamber, to warn you that
at this very moment Ummax gathers the
powers of the Bat-winged one against
you! ”

"The Bat-winged? You mean Zotzilha,
your bat-god of darkness? Just what do
you mean by that?” Abbott asked incredu-
lously.

Huroc’ s deep voice throbbed. "Surely
you know well. Have you not returned as
we have long prayed you would, to crush
that evil one? Is it not why you have come,
lord Kukulcan?”

Abbott gasped. "You call me Kukulcan?
This is all madness. I am no god.”

"No, but you are the chosen of the god,”
Shuima said quickly. "You are the Holder

THE VALLEY OF THE GODS

17

of Kukulcan, as Ummax is Holder of dark
Zotzilha.”

Abbott mentally damned all superstition.
Before he could protest, the girl was rapidly
whispering on.

"It is strange that you do not realize
these things yourself! For Kukulcan
brought you here, his thunders sweeping
you down into our valley as you told. And
Kukulcan will surely manifest himself in
you, for the final struggle that even now
impends.”

"Struggle? With what? With whom?”
Abbott wanted to know.

"With the Bat-winged!” Huroc growled
fiercely, his' huge figure shaking with
hatred. ’With the dark lord of evil who
for generations has fed and fattened upon
our helpless race!”

IV

S HUIMA’S soft fingers gripped Abbott’s
hand passionately as she whispered
swiftly.

"Twenty centuries have passed since
both Kukulcan and Zotzilha manifested
themselves through living men in our valley.
Zotzilha, die Bat-winged, to batten upon
the life-force of the sacrifices offered him.
But Kukulcan, the Plumed Serpent, to teach
and help us!

"Kukulcan, though his Holder, blessed
our people then. He drove the Bat- winged
back into his lair in the black mountain,
and he taught us ways of peace and happi-
ness. Then, in a fateful day, the prince of
Iltzlan who was then the Holder of Kukul-
can led a tribe of our folk into the outer
world when this valley became too small
for our numbers.

"Iltzlan never returned! And the sword
of Kukulcan by which a man could alone
become Holder of the god, was lost with
him in the outer world. So dark Zotzilha
came forth from his lair and dominated our
people, and since then has reigned in wick-
edness over them through such instruments
as that Ummax who is now his Holder.

"But now you have come back with the
sword, and now we know that Kukulcan
means to manifest himself through you and
to end the tyranny of the Bat-winged and
his creatures in Xibalba forever!”

Abbott was-v appalled. The superstitious
dualism of this lost people’s faith had in-
volved his own person.

His possession of that sword which he
had taken from the tomb which he now
knew was Iltzlan’s, had made them think
him a chosen instrument of their god Kukul-
can.

"I know nothing of gods!” he protested.
"By my people, Kukulcan is considered a
mere myth.”

"Kukulcan is no myth!” Huroc ex-
claimed. "He is force, invisible but tangi-
ble, real, mighty — aye, as Zotzilha is real
and mighty. The Plumed Serpent is but
the symbol of his lightnings. The real
Kukulcan is not of this world.”

It sounded almost convincing. But
Abbott forced himself to dismiss supersti-
tion from his mind. He must keep his head
clear.

"Just what do you expect me to do to.
unseat Ummax-Zotzilha's tyranny? You
have some plan?”

Shuima’s answer stunned him. "You go
with us now to the neglected Temple of
the Plumed Serpent. There have already
gathered a host of those in Xibalba who
still are secretly devoted to Kukulcan — like
the two guards at your doorway who let us
into your chamber.

"There in his temple, Kukulcan will
manifest himself in you as his Holder. And
when our people see that, they will follow
you to the death against Ummax and his
warriors!”

Abbott was appalled. They expected
some kind of supernatural possession to
manifest itself in him.

It was insane. Yet he had to fall in with
the idea, to humor their belief, if he were
not to be murdered in this palace-trap.

"All right, I’ll go,” he said quickly. "But
remember that 1 claim none of the kinship
with Kukulcan that you credit!"

He turned to the Guatemalan. "Yanez, it
might be safer for you to get clear of this
whole tangle once we’re out of the palace.
I don’t want to drag you into further dan-
ger.”

"I think there is danger everywhere in
this valley tonight, senor,” whispered
Yanez. "And I go where you go.”

Huroc opened the door, torchlight from

18

WEIRD TALES

the corridor outside outlining his massive
figure. He had a heavy sword in his hand.

"Let us be quick! And forget not the
consecrated sword, lord Kukulcan!”

Abbott took the heavy, ancient sword
from his pack and followed the huge one-
eyed warrior and the slim girl into the hall-
way.

The two guards on duty outside it bowed
to him with deep reverence. "We are ot
the faith, Lord Kukulcan!”

"Come! This way!” whispered Shuima.

They had taken but ten steps toward the
angle of the corridor when there suddenly
came around it the captain, Vipal.

The Mayan was not three feet in front
of them, and his tigerish face stiffened as
he struck with the drawn sword in his hand.

"I guessed there might be treachery!” he
hissed, as the obsidian-edged blade drove
at Abbott’s heart.

With a low, warning cry, Yanez shoved
Abbott violently aside. As Abbott reeled,
he heard a choking gasp.

'Senor — ”

H E REGAINED footing, whirled with
the ancient sword uplifted. But in
that brief moment, it was already over.

Big Huroc’s giant arm had whipped
around Vipal’s throat. There was a dull,
cracking sound, and the tigerish warrior
went limp with eyes rolling horribly.

"Quieter that way!” panted the one-eyed
giant.

"Lord, your friend is hurt!” exclaimed
Shuima.

Yanez lay, clutching the ghastly wound
made in his side by that swift, saw-toothed
sword. His face drained of color.

He whispered a word to Abbott bending
frantically over him. The word and his
life ended together.

"Damn it, I brought the man to death!”
choked Abbott. "He took that sword-blow
meant for me — ”

"Death is close for all of us unless we
get out of the palace at once,” warned
Huroc. He swung to the two guards who
had come racing along the corridor. "Hide
these bodies! We go!”

Abbott’s brain was whipped with grief,
remorse, doubt, as he followed the giant
and the girl hastily out of the palace.

Deep black brooded the night over
Xibalba, only a thin scimitar of stars across
the heavens marking the mouth of the
canyon high overhead. He stumbled with
his guides across gardens, along unlighted
and deserted narrow streets of the low city.

The torchlit mass of the palace fell be-
hind and presently they were in the forest
and pressing along a narrow trail. Birds
screamed in the dark trees- as they passed,
brandies whipped their faces.

Huroc looked back and uttered a low
exclamation. Abbott descried, far back at
the north end of the valley, torches made
tiny by distance coming down the stair in
that massive mountain-cliff.

“Ummax returns from the Temple of the
Bat-winged!” rasped the one-eyed giant.
"He will miss you, and then — ”

He did not finish, but quickened his
pace, Shuima’s hand on Abbott’s arm urging
him ever faster.

Then through the forest filtered red torch-
light. There rose before them the looming
white terraces of the great pyramidal
Temple of the Plumed Serpent.

Men and women numbering many hun-
dreds waited with flaring torches on the
terraces, a tense and silent host. Many were
warriors fully armed, and the eyes of all
fastened on Abbott’s face as he went be-
tween his two companions up the first mas-
sive stairway.

"The sword! It is Kukulcan’s sword!”
he heard them whisper excitedly as they
glimpsed the ancient weapon he carried.

"The lord of thunder! The Plumed
Serpent!” swelled the cry.

A BBOTT felt dazed when he reached the
flat shrine atop the pyramid. Here
reared two enormous stone effigies of the
plumed snake, great bodies coiled, mighty
heads challengingly upthrust. Between
them was a stone chair around which their
coils writhed protectingly.

He turned and looked down at the hosts
on the torchlit terraces. A deep, taut silence
had now fallen upon them, and their faces
were like graven masks of utter expectation
turned up to him.

"You must sit in the chair of the Holder,
and grasp the sword while we make the in-
vocation to Kukulcan,” Huroc told him.

THE VALLEY OF THE GODS

19

"Huroc! Shuima! This is all crazy!”
Abbott protested. "What you expect can-
not happen.”

"We know that you are the chosen Holder
or you would not have found the sword!”
exclaimed Huroc. "Take your place! The
invocation begins.”

They were chanting, those hosts down on
the terraces. Chanting words that were
familiar to Abbott from the old inscriptions.

"Bright One, Lord of the Thunder,

Plumed Serpent of living lightning - — ”

Sitting there above them, gripping the
ancient sword, Abbott heard a low roll of
thunder up the canyon and groaned in-
wardly.

"They'll think it the answer to their in-
vocation! And when nothing else hap-
pens — ”

"Lord of the storm- swept sky — ”

The thunder rolled louder as the chant
swelled. And Abbott stiffened suddenly on
his stone seat.

Force again was rushing up from the
sword into his arm and body, as it had
seemed to in the tomb. But now more
powerfully, his whole body tingling and
quivering from its impact!

"Electric influences of that coming
storm,” Abbott tried to tell himself, his
throat dry.

The torchlit throng below seemed to dis-
solve in bright mists, the swell of the chant
and the roll of thunder to merge into a
steady roaring in his ears.

He whirled, spun, was engulfed by shin-
ing mist. And again, but more completely
now, he felt the impact upon his brain of
a mind cool, vast and alien.

“I am he whom these folk call Kukul-
can. But I am no god.”

He heard that cool, quiet voice, in the
whirling mists. Yet it spoke inside his own
brain!

"You live in a universe that has infinite-
ly many dimensions unknown to you. In
those dimensional abysses dwell entities
such as you have not imagined, formless,
bodiless, yet powerful. And some of them
are — evil.

"Long ago, one of those evil ones
escaped our watch and penetrated through
to the dimension of your Earth. He laired
in this valley, became worshipped and

dreaded as the Bat-winged, as a god of
evil, by these ignorant folk.

“I, whose fault allowed his escape, was
sent to force him back into his own dark
dimensional gulfs. But he had grown too
strong! He has maintained himself here,
feeding on the life-force of sacrifices and
utilizing men as his instruments, for cen-
turies.

"And for centuries I have been unable
to interfere, because the sword you hold
was lost by chance in the outer world. That
sword is a cunningly contrived key which
can open the way between dimensions and
allow me to manifest myself through the
man who holds it. Your finding it enabled
me to use you as my instrument against the
Bat-winged.

"He must be destroyed, now or never,
lest he grow too great for this valley and
reach dark arms out over your earth. 'Ihe
black mace of Ummax is the key by which
he can reach into this world. You must
secure and destroy that mace, at all costs! '

Crash of thunder shook the mists that
shrouded Garth Abbott’s mind, and sud-
denly those bright mists were fading.

He opened dazed eyes upon the faces and
windblown torches beneath him, and saw
awe in Huroc’s burning eye and Shuma’s
face. He knew that his own face must have
been strange, unhuman.

Down from the gathering storm smote
lightning that seemed to dance upon the
temple top and outline the great Plumed
Serpents of stone beside him, like coiling
snakes of living fire.

"Kukulcan!” roared the throng beneath,
frantically acclaiming the dazed Abbott.
"Kukulcan returns!”

Abbott, brain reeling from that weird
mental possession that still seemed partly to
grip him, found himself crying out.

"I am the Holder of the Plumed Serpent!
Kukulcan returns in me! And I say that
we march on Xibalba now, to pull down
dark Zotzilha’s tyranny forever!’’

V

D ELUSION, hallucination born of wak-
ing nightmare that the rush and
strangeness of events had brought him? He
could not wholly believe that, with that

20

WEIRD TALES

supernal wrath and purpose still possessing
his mind.

If an unearthly, evil thing had reached
into earth from alien abysses, if he himself
was really the human instrument by which
it must be driven back, he must not linger
now to doubt!

"Huroc, gather our warriors!” he cried.
“We march back on the city at once.”

"Were ready now!” shouted the giant.
"Our one chance is to surprise Ummax
and — ”

Shrill wail from the forest interrupted
him, and up onto the torch! it terraces of
the temple staggered a Mayan warrior cov-
ered with blood and dust.

"The city’s people have risen against
Ummax!” he cried. "When the king re-
turned from the Bat-winged’s temple and
gathered his guards to follow you here, the
people rose for Kukulcan!”

"No chance of surprise now! It’s
started!” yelled Abbott. "Come on!”

Huroc and Shuima were beside him as his
host poured through the forest in a torrent
of torches and swords.

"The people can’t stand long against
Ummax’ guards!” Huroc was shouting as
they ran. "But with you to lead them, all
tilings are possible!”

Thunder of the oncoming tempest rolled
behind them as they burst out of die forest
into sight of the city.

Xibalba writhed in the throes of battle!
Wildly shaken torches revealed the clash-
ing combat in its streets as Ummax’ solid
masses of guards cut through the seething
mob of rebel citizens.

Abbott saw that the raging revolt
wavered already on the brink of defeat,
that the disciplined warriors were cutting
swiftly through the wild mob.

"Slay all with arms in their hands!”
roare'd Ummax’ bull voice across the din.
"Stamp out these traitors, once and for
all!”

Abbott glimpsed the towering figure of
die king, his wonderful plumes nodding
above the heads of his guards as lie bran-
dished and struck with die great black mace
that was his weapon.

That black mace was more than a weapon!
In Abbott’s fevered brain, as he charged
beside Huroc. rang remembrance of that

mental voice that had seemed to speak to
him in the temple.

"The black mace of Ummax is the key
by which Zotzilha can reach into this world.
You must destroy it, at all costs!” L

"Kukulcan! Kukulcan!” rose the waver-
ing cry of the rebels, even as they fell back
before the swords and spears of the guards.

"Kukulcan is here!" roared Huroc, as he
and Abbott with 'their warriors crashed into
the melee. "The Plumed Serpent leads us!”

At sight of Abbott’s figure, of the heavy,
ancient sword he carried, a thunderous
shout roared from the mob. They surged
forward in mad new charge.

Abbott felt himself carried as on the
crest of a human wave against the solid
ranks of Ummax' guards. Saw-edged
swords and spears gleamed in the shaken
torchlight before his eyes.

He struck blindly with his sword, felt it
bite into flesh and bone. He glimpsed awe
on the faces of Ummax’ men as they fell
back, a superstitious dread.

"We’re breaking them!” shouted Huroc
close beside him, the giant exultant. "On,
Kukulcan!”

"Hold firm!” roared Ummax to his men.
"The Bat- winged is with us. See!”

Ummax had raised his black mace high
in the torchlight. A swift, subtle change
was coming over the raging scene.

Cold, malefic darkness seemed rolling
down in an awesome wave upon Abbott
and Huroc and their advancing horde,
smothering their torches, dazing and blind-
ing them.

"The wings of our master fall upon
them! Strike and spare not!” howled
Ummax, exultant. "But take the false
Kukulcan and the traitors Huroc and
Shuima alive!”

Abbott felt die pulse of dismay, of dawn-
ing terror, through his forces as that chill,
rolling darkness deepened over diem.

They were giving back, crying aloud in
fear! And he too felt a strange dread of
that gathering gloom.

He told himself fiercely that he was let-
ting superstition affect him, that it was only
a blast of chill air from the storm rolling
up the valley that was smothering the
torches. And yet —

Ummax’ guards were breaking among

THE VALLEY OF THE GODS

21

his shaken forces, swords were striking
fiercely at him now, Huroc fighting madly
beside him.

"Shuima is taken, our men give way!”
the giant cried hoarsely. "Lord Kukulcan,
unless you lift the Bat-winged’s dark-
ness — ”

Shuima captured? Ummax roaring in tri-
umph as he urged his triumphant warriors
on? Steady, wrathful anger that was not
his own mind’s rage seemed to possess
Abbott’s brain fully now.

"Fear not!” he heard himself shouting.
"Zotziiha’s dark forces cannot stand
against these! ”

And he flung his hand to point skyward,
at blinding lightning uncoiling and searing
through the chill darkness.

T HE hellish crash of thunder that fol-
lowed those first lightnings of the break-
ing storm was punctuated by Huroc’s cry.

"The fire-serpents of Kukulcan strike
across the sky! The lord of thunder leads
us!”

And as the full fury of the tempest
crashed upon Xibalba, the warriors behind
Abbott surged resistlessly forward.

"Kukulcan leads us!” shrilled the wild,
exultant cry.

To Abbot, that battle in the storm-lashed
streets became a mad chaos of swords and
shouts and ghastly faces, of blinding light-
ning flaring in battle against sullen dark-
ness.

Battle of gods as well as men? Or not
of gods, but of entities from far beyond
Earth’s dimensions now in death-grapple
here?

He could not speculate upon that now.
He had but one objective in his mind, and
that was to cut his way to Ummax and
seize that mighty black mace which the
towering king wielded.

But Ummax disappeared from view as
the battle lost form and changed into a
staggering, swirling melee. His guards were
being split up, attacked in groups, .over-
whelmed by weight of raging numbers.

Abbott found Huroc grasping his arm,
leaning to shout to him above die roll of
thunder and hiss of rain.

"We've won the city! It’s the end of
Ummax’ tyranny!”

"Not the end until he is dead and his
black weapon in my hands!” cried Abbott.
"Quick, to the palace! We must find him!”
Wolfishly-shouting, battle- fevered men
poured after them over the 'last remnants
of resistance to die massive palace.

In the torchlit corridors of the great pile
they found no one but scared servants who
gave them news of Ummax.

"The king and his last warriors fled past
here to the Temple of the Bat-winged! They
had the princess Shuima with them!”

Huroc uttered a hoarse exclamation. "We
must catch them before they enter Zotziiha’s
dark cavern! For no man but Ummax him-
self can enter the Bat-winged’s lair!”
Abbott whirled. "Quick, then! We can’t
wait for the others!”

With die hundred men who had followed
them into die palace, he and Huroc plunged
out into the tempest and hastened north-
ward up the valley.

VI

A BBOTT could have imagined no spec-
tacle of such awesome grandeur as the
thunderstorm that was moving with them
up the great canyon. Confined between
those lofty rock walls, its thunders were
deafening and each lightning-flash appeared
to rive the universe.

Wind and rain were wildly rocking the
forest along whose trails they pressed. They
had no torches and only by light of the re-
current flashes could they finally make out
die black, looming bulk of the square moun-
tain that headed die valley.

"See, they climb the stairs to the Bat-
winged’s temple!” yelled Huroc, pointing
widi his sword. "After them!”

"We follow, Kukulcan!” cried the mad-
dened Mayan warriors behind them.

By the lightning-flashes, Abbott saw the
stair as a great flight of broad steps cut
from the black living rock and leading right
up the steep slope of the mountain.

Black stone statues of bat-winged Zotzilha
guarded the landing halfway up the stair,
and here Ummax’ two-score guards had
turned desperately with raised swords.

"They seek to hold us while Ummax
escapes with Shuima into the Bat-wir.ged’s
lair!” raged Huroc.

22

WEIRD TALES

Abbott, by a blinding flash, himself saw
Ummax climbing on up the stair and drag-
ging the senseless form of the Mayan girl.

"Crush them down! See, Kukulcan’s
lightnings assault the evil one’s lair! - ' Huroc
encouraged.

The flashes of incessant lightning were
indeed striking the face of the black moun-
tain, riving away great masses of rock.

Reason told Abbott that metallic ores in
the mountain must be attracting the light-
ning. But the stunning spectacle seemed to
transcend such logic by its supernatural
power.

Swords clashed and rang across the stair
as they readied the landing and Ummax’
guards. Abbott, staggering on the slippery
wet stone, ducked one vicious blow and
hacked at the distorted face beyond.

The lightning showed six men already
cut down when the rest of Ummax’ men,
unnerved by the appalling flashes, gave up.

"Spare our lives, Kukulcan!” they cried,
dropping their weapons. "The king forced
us to stand against you!”

“Take them prisoner!” Abbott cried to
his shouting warriors. "Now up the stair,
Huroc!”

They raced with a score of their men up
the last flight of massive steps. The whole
mountain seemed rocking and quivering to
the continuous lightning-blasts as they
reached the top landing.

This broad stone platform was a mere
shelf cut in the side of the cliff. From it, a
high, dark tunnel ran into the solid rock
of the mountain. And over that dark por-
tal spread the stone wings of Zotzilha,
guarding, warding the lair within.

Abbott gripped his sword and started
into the dark passage, and Huroc and the
others hesitantly started to follow him.

They stepped into a deep darkness that
was utterly cold. A freezing chill smote to
Abbott’s bones, a feeling of iciness and
suffocation as the sullen darkness in the
tunnel swiftly thickened.

“The Bat-winged’s power is upon us!”
choked Huroc. "I cannot move!”

He and the other Mayans seemed actual-
ly petrified, either by superstitious terror or
by the malign grip of that icy darkness.

But though Abbott himself felt the
smothering grasp of the frigid gloom, he

was still able to struggle forward along
the somber tunnel.

Flash on flash of lightning sent a mo-
mentary blinding glare down the passage-
way ahead of him, and for that moment he
found himself able to pitch forward at in-
creased speed.

"Kukulcan goes to slay the Bat-winged in
his lair!” he heard Huroc shouting, behind
him.

Abbott felt himself two utterly divergent
beings as he pressed unsteadily forward
through those gloomy cavern tunnels, sword
gripped in his hand.

He was Garth Abbott, American and
archaeologist, seeking to save the girl
Shuima from the brutal savage tyrant who
had dragged her here with murderous pur-
pose.

But he was also the unearthly being who
was using him as instrument, he was also
that bright being from other-world dimen-
sions whose century-old struggle with a
thing of evil had now reached climax.

"Zotzilha, I come!” he seemed to hear
himself shouting fiercely down the tunnels.
"Will you meet me, spawn of darkness?”

The part of him that was Garth Abbott
rejected that fierce challenge as mere men-
tal aberration born of the influence of storm
and battle on his fevered mind.

But the part of him -that was Kukulcan
drove him forward with raging eagerness
against the rolling, turbid darkness.

T HE tunnel debouched into a mighty cav-
ern. And here darkness seemed en-
throned and supreme, a swirling blackness
as of extra-terrestrial abysses that blinded
and staggered Abbott.

Hoarse, bellowing laughter like banter-
ings in hell broke echoing around Abbott
as he swayed irresolute.

“So you came to meet me, Kukulcan?
Then be it so!” it mocked.

A titan thunderclap rocked the mountain
as bright lightning flashed from outside
along the tunnels into this buried cavern.

The throbbing flare of fiery radiance for
a moment illumined the whole interior of
the cavernous space to Abbott’s eyes.

He saw, across the cavern, the gigantic,
looming stone image of a huge bat with
outspread wings, whose red jewel-eyes

THE VALLEY OF THE GODS

25

glared down at him and at whose feet
Shuima’s slim body lay unmoving.

And he saw also Ummax towering be-
side him, black mace already raised to dash
down upon his head!

The lightning-flash died — and Abbott
whirled away and heard the whistle of the
mace as it grazed past him in falling.

Wrapped again in the suffocating cold
darkness, Abbott lunged and stabbed with
his sword — but stabbed empty air.

''This darkness is my realm!” mocked
Ummax' voice. "You cannot escape — ”

The lightning flared in the tunnels again,
and in time to show Abbott that the tower-
ing Mayan was charging him.

Abbott struck savagely before the flare
should fade, and felt his sword bite into
his antagonist’s shoulder. But the whirl-
ing mace struck his head a glancing blow,
this time.

He staggered, felt himself falling, heard
Ummax’ hoarse shout of triumph. Desper-
ately, as he fell, Abbott caught at the May-
an’s legs and brought him down before he
could swing the mace again.

They grappled on the rock floor of the
cavern, Ummax ferociously choking him
into helplessness. And the dancing flares
of lightning that were now continuous
in the outer tunnels showed Abbott the
distorted face of Unmax as the supreme
horror.

For it was the handsome, evil alien face
he had twice before glimpsed that now had
usurped Ummax’ features.

Face of Zotzilha glaring down at him
from the human body it used as instrument?
Was his own face in this terrible moment
the countenance of Garth Abbott or of
Kukulcan?

His shaken senses were fading as Um-
max’ great hands throttled him. The tower-
ing Mayan leaped up, snatching up the black
mace to bring it down on Abbott in a final
death-blow.

Ummax’ wounded shoulder checked him
for a moment, forced him to shift his grip
upon the mace. And in that moment, with
desperate upsurge of last strength, Abbott
bounded up and whirled his sword and
struck.

He felt the sword crash through the up-
lifted mace, shattering it to fragments! He

felt it tear deep into the towering Mayan’s
breast!

"Beaten, driven, by the Bright One!”
howled Ummax as he staggered. "Forever
exiled — ”

T HUNDER rocked the mountain wildly,
and the fiery serpents of lightning in the
tunnels showed Abbott that as Ummax fell
it was the Mayan’s own gross face that now
was stiffening in death.

And Abbott felt, at the same moment, re-
lease from the strange tension of possession
that had seemed to grip him all this night.

Gone dark Zotzilha, forced back into the
black abysses from which he had long ago
crept into earth? And gone too Kukulcan,
his mission finished?

Abbott heard the grind and roll of shift-
ing rock, and by the fading flare his dazed
eyes saw the giant bat-winged image rock-
ing forward on its base.

He sprang unsteadily and snatched Shui-
ma’s slim figure aside as the statue raised
of old by Zotzilha’s worshipers ponderously
leaned and fell and crashed to ruin.

"The Bat-winged!” choked the Mayan girl
fearfully when he had carried her into die
outer tunnel, and had revived her.

"It has perished, and there is no more to
fear,” he told her hoarsely.

Shuima clung to him, quivering. "Um-
max would have sacrificed me to it, as he
has sacrificed many others. Yes, for ages,
dark Zotzilha has drunk the life of victims
in that dreacj cavern.”

Had it been so? Had, for centuries, some
dark and alien being from beyond fed upon
the life-force of men and women in mon-
strous vampirism? Or was that only super-
stition masking brutal murder?

"You have set Xibalba free from that
horror, Lord Kukulcan!”

"Kukulcan no more,” he told her. "What-
ever I was tonight, possessed or mad, I am
so no longer.”

Possession or momentary madness? He
would never know which, for certain. He
might come more and more to believe that
only the influence of time and place and
superstition had given him those queer de-
lusions of having been an instrument in a
struggle transcending earth.

But, remembering the strange chain of

24

WEIRD TALES

fate that had brought him from a chance-
found tomb to lead the fight against evil
tyranny of this lost, forgotten race, he would
never be too sure!

He walked unsteadily with Shuima out
through the tunnels to the stone landing, and
stood there with her in the flare of the
dying storm as he faced the frantic acclaim
of Huroc and his warriors.

"The Plumed Serpent is victor! Hail the

Holder of Kukulcan, the new lord of Xi-
balba!”

' Abbott knew then that whatever had
brought him to Xibalba, he would stay here.
He could bring these people the best of the
outside world, could in time reveal them to
that world.

But all that lay in future years. For now,
standing with his arm tightening around
Shuima, he was content.

The Haunted Stairs

BY YETZA GILLESPIE

rpHE staircase narrow as the way
- L Unto salvation’s door,

Leads from a hall as dark as sin
With deep stains on the floor.

Nobody knows who climbed halfway
To where the turn is black,

What clutching fingers waited there,
Who felt the heartstrings crack.

I’ll step into the hall some night
When I forget my prayers,

And to my sorrow, see what stands
Upon the dreadful stairs.

And no one knows what now ascend'
The thirteenth step — and stops,

And flutters like a netted bird
Before it moans, and drops. . . .

XT is believed that
a lighted candle in the

ROOM DURING THE TIME
OP APPEARANCE OF A /
V GHOST WILL BURN A yB
NX BB/LUANr&LOE yU

O/? QByy

Supers ti lions and ^Jal i

ooJ

When the ancient Egyptians

SACRIFICED A BULL, THEY INVOKED
UPON ITS HEAD ALL TWc-EV/tS rHATM/GNr

OTA/ERW/SE BEFALL TNE/HSEO/ES
.AND me LAND

PaRKENINS Of THE EYEUDS
WAS ORIGINALLY done as a
CHARM AGAINST THE EVIL
EVE. IT WAS BELIEVED TO
PROTECT ONE AGAINSTTHE
PARTS THAT WERE SHOT FROM
THE EYES OF OTHERS AND AS A
GUARD TO PAYMENT CAST/NG TPE
Baneful emanat/ons ONESELF /

* /

■The number

Hi ME WAS THOUGHT
To POSSESS A MYSTIC
POWER AND WAS
USED BY PRIMITIVE
PEOPLE BOTH TO

CAUSE a UP to *
CUES’ /tlA/ESS Q

25

By JACK SNOW

B ETWEEN the hour of eleven and
midnight John Ware made ready
to perform the ceremony that would
climax the years of homage he had paid
to the dark powers of evil. Tonight he
would become a part of that essence of
dread that roams the night hours. At the
last stroke of midnight his consciousness
would leave his body and unite with that
which shuns the light and is all depravity
and evil. Then he would roam the world

with this midnight elemental and for one
hour savor all the evil that this alien being
is capable of inspiring in human souls.

John Ware had lived so long among the
shadows of evil that his mind had become
tainted, and through the channel of his
thoughts his soul had been corrupted by
die poison of the dark powers with which
he consorted.

There was scarcely a forbidden book of
shocking ceremonies and nameless teach-

Heading by BORIS DOLGOV

. . . and at the stroke of tiuelve he would climax the years of homage
he had paid to the dark powers of evil

06

MIDNIGHT

27

ings that Ware had not consulted and pored
over in the long hours of the night. When
certain guarded books he desired were un-
obtainable, he had shown no hesitation in
stealing them. Nor had Ware stopped with
mere reading and studying these books. He
had descended to the ultimate depths and
put into practice the ceremonies, rites and
black sorceries that stained the pages of the
volumes. Often those practices had required
human blood and human lives, and here
again Ware had not hesitated. He had long
ago lost .account of the number of innocent
persons who had mysteriously vanished
from the face of the earth — victims of his
insatiable craving for knowledge of the evil
that dwells in the dark, furtively, when the
powers of light are at their nadir.

John Ware had traveled to all the strange
and little known parts of the earth. He had
tricked and wormed secrets out of priests
and dignitaries of ancient cults and religions
of whose existence the world of clean day-
light has no inkling. Africa, the West In-
dies, Tibet, China, Ware knew them all
and they held no secret whose knowledge
he had not violated.

By devious means Ware had secured ad-
mission to certain private institutions and
homes behind whose facades were confined
individuals who were not mad in the out-
right sense of the everyday definition of the
word, but who, if given their freedom,
would loose nightmare horror on the world.
Some of these prisoners were so curiously
shaped and formed that they had been hid-
den away since childhood. In a number of
instances their vocal organs were so alien
that the sounds they uttered could not be
considered human. Nevertheless, John
Ware had been heard to converse with
them.

TN JOHN WARE’S chamber stood an
-I- ancient clock, tall as a human being,
and abhorently fashioned from age-yel-
lowed ivory. Its head was that of a woman
in an advanced state of dissolution. Around
the skull, from which shreds of ivory flesh
hung, were Roman numerals, marked by
two death’s head beetles, which, engineered
by intricate machinery in the clock, crawled
slowly around the perimeter of the skull to
mark the hours. Nor did this clock tick

as does an ordinary clock. Deep wi.tain its
woman’s bosom sounded a dull, regular
thud, disturbingly similar to the beating of a
human heart.

The malevolent creation of an unknown
sorcerer of the dim past, this eerie clock
had been the property of a succession of
warlocks, alchemists, wizards, Satanists and
like devotees of forbidden arts, each of
whom had invested the clock with some-
thing of his own evil existence, so that a
dark and revolting nimbus hung about it
and it seemed to exude a loathesome ani-
mus from its repellantly human form.

It was to this clock that John Ware ad-
dressed himself at the first stroke of mid-
night. The clock did not announce the hour
in the fashion of other clocks. During the
hour its ticking sounded faint and dull,
scarcely distinguishable above ordinary
sounds. But at each hour the ticking rose
to a muffled thud, sounding like a human
heart-beat heard through a stethoscope. With
these ominous thuds it marked the hours,
seeming to intimate that each beat of the
human heart narrows that much more the
span of mortal life.

Now the clock sounded the midnight
hour, "Thud, thud, thud — ” Before it stood
John Ware, his body traced with cabalistic
markings in a black pigment which he had
prepared according to an ancient and noxi-
ous formula.

As the clock thudded out the midnight
hour, John Ware repeated an incantation,
which, had it not been for his devouring
passion for evil, would have caused even
him to shudder at the mere sounds of the
contorted vowels. To his mouthing of the
unhuman phrases, he performed a pattern
of motions with his body and limbs which
was an unearthly grotesquerie of a dance.

"Thud, thud, thud — ” the beat sounded
for the twelfth time and then subsided to
a dull, muffled murmur which was barely
audible in the silence of the chamber. The
body of John Ware sank to the thick rug
and lay motionless. The spirit was gone
from it. At the last stroke of the hour of
midnight it had fled.

With a great thrill of exultation, John
Ware found himself outside in the night.
He had succeeded! That which he had
summoned had accepted him! Now for the

28

WEIRD TALES

next hour he would feast to his fill on
unholy evil. Ware was conscious that he was
not alone as he moved effortlessly through
the night air. He was accompanied by a
being which he perceived only as an amor-
phous darkness, a darkness that was deeper
and more absolute than the inky night,
a darkness that was a vacuum or blank in
the color spectrum.

W ARE found himself plunging sud-
denly earthward. The walls of a
building flashed past him and an instant
later he was in a sumptuously furnished
living room, where stood a man and a
woman. Ware felt a strong bond between
himself and the woman. Her thoughts were
his, he felt as she did. A wave of terror
was enveloping him, flowing to him from
the woman, for the man standing before
her held a revolver in his hand. He was
about to pull the trigger. John Ware lived
through an agony of fear in those few mo-
ments that the helpless woman cringed be-
fore the man. Then a shapeless darkness
settled over the man. His eyes glazed dully.
Like an automaton he pressed the trigger
and the bullet crashed into the woman’s
heart. John Ware died as she died.

Once again Ware was soaring through
the night, the black being close at his side.
He was shaken by the experience. What
could it mean? How had he come to be
identified so closely with the tortured con-
sciousness of the murdered woman?

Again Ware felt himself plummeting
earthward. This time he was in a musty cel-
lar in the depths of a vast city’s tenement
section. A man lay chained to a crude,
wooden table. Over him stood two crea-
tures of loathesome and sadistic counte-
nance. Then John Ware was the man on the
table. He knew, he thought, he felt every-
thing that the captive felt. He saw a black
shadow settle over the two evil-looking
men. Their eyes glazed, their lips parted
slightly as saliva drooled from them. The
men made use of an assortment of crude
instruments, knives, scalpels, pincers and
barbed hooks, in a manner which in ten
short minutes reduced the helpless body
before them from a screaming human be-
ing to a whimpering, senseless thing covered
with wounds and rivulets of blood. John

Ware suffered as the victim suffered. At
last the tortured one slipped into uncon-
sciousness. An instant later John Ware was
moving swiftly through the night sky. At
his side was the black being.

It had been terrible. Ware had endured
agony that he had not believed the human
body was capable of suffering. Why? Why
had he been chained to the consciousness of
the man on the torture table? Swiftly Ware
and his companion soared through the night
moving ever westward.

John Ware felt himself descending again.
He caught a fleeting glimpse of a lonely
farm house, with a single lamp glowing in
one window. Then he was ir| an old fash-
ioned country living room. In a wheel chair
an aged man sat dozing. At his side, near
the window, stood a table on which burned
an oil lamp. A dark shape hovered over
the sleeping man. Shuddering in his slum-
ber, the man flung out one arm, restlessly.
It struck the oil lamp, sending it crashing
to the floor, where it shattered and a pool
of flame sprang up instantly. The aged crip-
ple awoke with a cry, and made an effort
to wheel his chair from the flames. But it
was too late. Already the carpet and floor
were burning and now the man’s clothing
and the robe that covered his legs were
afire. Instinctively the victim threw up his
arms to shield his face. Then he screamed
piercingly, again and again. John Ware felt
everything that the old man felt. He suf-
fered the inexpressible agony of being con-
sumed alive by flames. Then he was outside
in the night. Far below and behind him
the house burned like a torch in the dis-
tance. Ware glanced fearfully at the shadow
that accompanied him as they sped on at
tremendous speed, ever westward.

O NCE again Ware felt himself hurtling
down through the night. Where to
this time? What unspeakable torment was
he to endure now? All was dark about him.
He glimpsed no city or abode as he flashed
to earth. About him was only silence and
darkness. Then like a wave engulfing his
spirit, came a torrent of fear and dread.
He was striving to push something upward.
Panic thoughts consumed him. He would
not die — he wanted to live — he would es-
cape! He writhed and twisted in his narrow

MIDNIGHT

29

confines, his fists beating on the surface
above him. It did not yield. John Ware
knew that he was linked with the conscious-
ness of a man who had been prematurely
buried. Soon the victim’s fists were dripping
with blood as he ineffectually clawed and
pounded at the lid of the coffin. As time is
measured it didn’t last long. The exertions
of the doomed man caused him quickly to
exhaust the small amount of air in the coffin
and he soon smothered to death. John Ware
experienced that, too. But the final oblitera-
ting and crushing of the hope that burned
in the man’s bosom probably was the worst
of all.

Ware was again soaring through the
night. His soul shuddered as he grasped
the final, unmistakable significance of the
night’s experiences. He, he was to be the
victim, the sufferer, throughout this long
hour of midnight!

He had thought that by accompanying the
dark being around the earth, he would share
in the savoring of all the evils that flourish
in the midnight hour. He was participating
— but not as he had expected. Instead, he
was the victim, the cringing, tormented one.
Perhaps this dark being he had summoned
was jealous of its pleasures, or perhaps it
derived an additional intensity of satisfac-
tion by adding John Ware’s consciousness
to those of its victims.

Ware was descending again. There was
no resisting the force that flung him earth-
ward.

He was completely helpless before the
power he had summoned. What now? What
new terror would he experience.

On and on, ever westward through the
night, John Ware endured horror after hor-
ror. He died again and again, each time
in a more fearsome manner. He was sub-
jected to revolting tortures and torments as
he was linked with victim after victim. He
knew the frightful nightmare of human
minds tottering on the abyss of madness.
All that is black and unholy and is visited
upon mankind he experienced as he roamed
the earth with the midnight being.

Would it never end? Only the thought
that these sixty minutes must pass sustained
-him. But it did not end. It seemed an eter-
nity had gone by. Such suffering could not
be crowded into a single hour. It must be
days since he had left his body.

Days, nights, sixty minutes, one hour?
John Ware was struck with a realization
of terrific impact. It seemed to be communi-
cated to him from the dark being at his
side. Horribly clear did that being make the
simple truth. John Ware was lost. Weeks,
even months, might have passed since he
had left his body. Time, for him, had
stopped still’s

John Ware was eternally chained to the
amorphous black shape, and was doomed
to exist thus horribly forever, suffering end-
less and revolting madness, torture and
death through eternity. He had stepped into
that band of time known as midnight, and
was caught, trapped hopelessly — doomed
to move with the grain of time endlessly
around the earth.

For as long as the earth spins beneath the
sun, one side of it is always dark and in that
darkness midnight dwells forever.

BY SEABURY QUINN

T HE murmur of voices sounded
from the drawing room as I let
myself in wearily after a hard after-
noon at the hospital. An intern might appre-
ciate two appendectomies and an accouche-
ment within the space of four hours, but
an intern would need the practice and be
thirty years my junior. I was dog-tired and
in no mood to entertain visitors. As silently
as I could I crept down the hall, but:
"Trowbridge, mon vieux,” de Grandin
hailed as I passed the partly opened door
on tiptoe, "a mot, s’il vous plait. This is of
interest, this.” Putting the best face I could
upon the matter I joined him.

"May I present Monsieur and Madame
Jaquay?” he asked, then with a bow to the
callers, “ Monsieur , Madame, Dr. Trow-
bridge.”

The young man who stepped forward
with extended hand had fine, regular fea-
tures crowned by a mass of dark hair, a
broad, low forehead and deep greenish-
hazel eyes set well apart beneath straight
brows. The woman seated on the sofa was
in every way his feminine counterpart. Close
as a skullcap her short-cropped black hair,
combed straight back from her forehead and
waved in little ripples, lay against her small
well-shaped head; her features were so small
and regular as to seem almost insignificant
by reason of their very symmetry. The dead-
white pallor of her skin was enhanced by
her lack of rouge and the brilliant lipstick
on her mouth, while the greenness of her
hazel eyes was rendered more noticeable by
skillfully applied eye shadow which gave
her lids a faintly violet-green tinge and a
luster like that of worn silk.

I shook hands with the young man and
bowed to the girl — she was little more —
then looked at them again in wonder. "Mr.
and Mrs. Jaquay?” I asked. "You look more
like — ”

"Of course, we do," the girl cut in.
"We're twins.”

"Twins — ”

"Practically, sir. Our mothers were first
cousins, and our fathers were first cousins,
too, though not related to our mothers, ex-
cept by marriage. We were born in the same
hospital within less than half an hour of
each other, and grew up in adjoining
houses. We went to school, high school and
college together, and were married tl day
after graduation.”

"Is it not entirely charming?” Jules de
Grandin demanded.

I was becoming somewhat nettled. Tired
as I was I had no wish to interview two-
headed calves, Siamese twins, cousins mar-
ried to each other and like as grains of
sand on the seashore or other natural phe-
nomena. "Why, yes, of course,” I agreed,
"but — ”

"But there is more — parbleu, much more!
— my old and rare,” die little Frenchmaa
assured me. To the young man he ordered:
"Tell him what you have told me, mon
jeune. Mordieu, but you shall see his eyes
pop like those of an astonished toad-frog!”

I dropped into a chair and tried my best
to assume a look of polite interest as young
Jaquay ran his hand over his sleek hair,
cast a look of appeal at de Grandin and
began hesitantly. "Georgine and I came
here three months ago. Our Uncle, Yancv
Molloy, made us sole beneficiaries of his
will and Tofte House — perhaps you know
the place? — was part of our inheritance.
There were a few repairs to be made, though
the place was in extraordinarily good condi-
tion for so old a structure, and we’ve been
living there a little over two months. We've
become very much attached to it; we’d hate
to have to leave.”

"Then why not stay?” I answered some-
what ungraciously. "If the house is yours
and you like it — ”

"Because it’s haunted, sir.”

"What!”

He colored slightly, but went on: "It’s

30

Heading by BORIS DOLGOV

cro

" — as if that dreadful geyser of sound were being sucked
down into some hellish drain- pipe.”

O

SS

sosososososososososososoro

32

WEIRD TALES

haunted. We didn’t notice anything out of
the oidinary for the first few days we lived
there, then gradually both Georgine and I
began to — well, sir, to feel alien presences
there. We’d be reading in ,the library or
sitting at table, or just going about our
affairs in the house when suddenly we’d
have that strange, uncanny feeling you have
when someone stares fixedly at the back of
your neck.

"When we’d turn suddenly as we al-
ways did at first, there’d be no one there,
of course, but that odd, eerie sensation
of being constantly and covetly watched
persisted. Instead of wearing off it grew
stronger and stronger till we could hardly
bear it.”

"U’m?” I commented, taking quick stock
of our callers, noting their small stature,
their delicacy of form and feature . . . their
double cousinship amounted almost to in-
breeding, fertile ground for neuroses to
sprout in. "I know that feeling of malaise
you refer to, and the fact that you bdth ex-
perienced it seems diagnostic. You young
folks of today burn the candle at both ends.
There’s no need to hurry so; save a few
sensations to be probed when you’re past
forty. These visual, sensory and circulatory
symptoms aren’t at all unusual. You’ll have
to take it easier, get much more rest and a
lot more sleep. If you can't sleep I’ll give
you some trional — ”

"But certainly,” de Grandin cut in. "And
the trional will surely stop the sound of
clanking chains and dismal, hollow groans.”

"What?” I turned on him. "Are you try-
ing to tell me — ”

"Not at all, by no means, my old one.
But Monsieur Jaquay was endeavoring to do
so when you interrupted with your prattle
of the so odious trional. Say on, Monsieur
he ordered our guest.

"We were getting pretty much on edge
from this feeling of being watched so con-
stantly,” young Jaquay continued, "but it
wasn’t till last week we heard anything.
We’ve made some pleasant friends in Har-
risonville, sir, and been going out quite a
bit. Last Saturday we’d been to New York
on a party with Steve and Mollie Tenbroeck
and Tom and Jennie Chaplin — dinner at the
Wedgewood Room, to Broadway to see ‘Up
in Central Park,’ then to Copacabana for

supper and dancing. It must have been a
little after three when we got home.

“i^EORGINE had gone to bed, and I
VJ was in the bathroom washing my
teeth when I heard her scream. I ran into
the bedroom with the dentrifice suds still on
my lips, and there she was, huddled in the
bed with the covers drawn up to her chin,
pushing against the headboard as if she
were trying to force herself through it.
‘Something touched me!’ she chattered. ‘It
was like an ice-cold hand!’

“Well — ” he smiled apologetically —
"you know how it is, sir. ‘What?’ I asked.

" ‘I don’t know; I was almost asleep
when it put its clammy fingers on me!’

"We’d had several rounds of cocktails at
both dinner and supper, and Burgundy with
dinner and champagne at supper, but both
of us were cold sober — well, not more than
pleasantly exhilarated — when we got home.
‘You’re nuts,’ I told her.

"And just as I spoke something went
wrong with the lights. They didn’t go out
all at once. That could have been explained
by a blown-out fuse or a short circut in the
feed line. This was different. The lamps
began to grow dim slowly, as if a rheostat
were being turned off. It was possibly a
half-minute before the room was dark, but
when the darkness came it was terrific. It
pressed down on us like a great blanket,
then it seemed to smother us completely —
more completely than a thousand black
cloths. You know that wild, unreasoning
feeling of panic you have when you choke
at table? This was like it. I was not only
blinded, but bound and gagged as well. I
tried to call to Georgine. The best that T
could do was utter a choked, strangling
gasp. I tried to go to her; it was like try-
ing to wade waist-deep through a strong
tide. The blackness in that room seemed
liquefied, almost solidified.

“Then we heard it. At first it was no
more than a whisper, like the sighing of a
storm heard miles away, but getting louder,
stronger, every second, like a storm that
rushes toward you. Then the sigh changed
to a moan and the moan became a howl,
and the howl rose to a screech, and then
rose to a piercing shriek that stabbed our
eardrums like a needle. It rose and rose,

THREE IN CHAINS

33

spiraling upward till it seemed no human
throat could stand the strain of it. Then it
stopped suddenly with a deep, guttural
gurgle, as if all that dreadful geyser of
sound were being sucked down into a drain-
pipe. The silence that followed was almost
worse than the noise. It was as if we had
suddenly been stricken stone-deaf.

"I could feel the perspiration trickling
down my forehead and into my eyes, but
the sweat seemed turned to ice as the silence
was smashed by the clanking of a chain. At
first it was no more than a light clinking
sound, as if some tethered beast stirred in
the darkness. But like the shriek it increased
in volume till it seemed some chained mon-
ster were straining at his iron leash, striv-
ing with a strength past anything that man
or beast knows to break loose from its
fetters.”

Jaquay halted in his narrative to draw a
handkerchief from his breast pocket and pass
it over his brow. His wife was sobbing on
the sofa, not violently, but with soft, sad
little sounds, like those a frightened child
might make.

"And then, Monsieur?” de Grandin
prompted.

"Then the lights flashed on, not slowly,
as they had gone off, but with a sudden
blaze of blinding brightness, and there we
were in our bedroom and everything was
just the same. Georgine was cowering
against the headboard of the bedstead, and
I was standing at the bathroom door blink-
ing like a fool in the sharp, dazzling light,
with the dentifrice suds still on my lips
and running down my chin to dribble on
the floor.”

"And there have been more — manifesta-
tions?”

G EORGINE JAQUAY answered in her
charmingly modulated contralto. "Not
so — so violent, sir. George and I were
pretty badly shaken by what happened Sat-
urday night, or more precisely Sunday morn-
ing, but we were both very tired and
dropped off to sleep before we realized it.
Next day was bright and sunny and we’d
almost succeeded in convincing ourselves the
experience of the night before was nothing
but a sort of double nightmare when that
sensation of being watched became stronger

than ever. Only now it seemed somehow
different.”

" Hein ?”

"Yes, sir. As if whoever — or whatever —
watched us were gloating. Our uneasiness
increased as the afternoon wore on; by bed-
time we were in a pretty sorry state, but — "
“Ah, but you had the hardihood, the
courage, n’est-ce-pas, Madame? You did not
let it drive you from your home?”

"We did not,” Georgine Jaquay’s small
mouth snapped shut like a miniature steel
trap on the denial. "We hadn't any idea
what it was that wanted to get rid of us,
but we determined to face up to it.”
"Bravissimo! And then?”

"I don’t know how long we’d been sleep-
ing. Perhaps an hour; perhaps only a few
minutes, but suddenly I wakened and sat
bolt-upright, completely conscious. I had a
feeling of sharp apprehension, as if an in-
visible alarm-bell were sounding a warning
in my brain. There was no moon, but a
little light came through the bedroom win-
dows, enough for me to distinguish the fur-
niture. Everything seemed as usual, then all
at once I noticed the door. It showed against
the further wall in a dark oblong. Dark.
Dark like a hole. Somehow the comparison
made me* breathe faster. I could feel the
pulses racing in my wrists and throat. Tire
door had been shut — and locked — when we
went to bed. Now it swung open, and I
had a feeling unseen eyes were staring at
me from the hallway while mine sought
helplessly to pierce the darkness. Then I
heard it. Not loud this time, but a sort of
whimpering little moan, such as a side child
might give, and then the feeble clanking
of a chain, as if whatever were bound by it
moved a little, but not much.

"I sat there staring helplessly into the
dark while every nerve in my body seemed
tauted to the breaking point, and listened
-to that hopeless moaning and the gentle
clanking of that chain for what seemed like
an hour. Then, very softly, came a woman’s
voice.”

"A woman’s, Madame ?”

"Yes, sir. I could not possibly have been
mistaken. It was low, not a whisper, but
very weak and — hopeless.”

"Yes, Madame ? And what did this so
small voice say, if you please?”

34

WEIRD TALES

" 'My poor darling!’ ”

"Sang du diable! It said that?”

"Yes, sir. Just that. No more.”

"And were there further voices?”

"No, sir. There were a few weak, feeble
moans, repeated at longer and longer inter-
vals, and every once in a while the chain
would rattle, but there were no more
words.”

D E GRANDIN turned to young Jaquay.

"And did you hear this so strange voice
also, Monsieur?’*

"No, sir. I slept through it all, but later
in the night, perhaps just before morning,

I wakened with a feeling someone stood
beside the bed and watched me, and then
I heard the scraping of a chain — not across
our floor, but over something hard and
gritty, like stone or perhaps concrete, and^
three people moaning softly.”

"Three? Grand Dieu des cochons, the
man says three! How could you tell, Mon-
sieur?”

"Their voices were distinct and different.
One was a man’s, a light baritone, well-
pitched, but very weak. The other two were
women's, one soft and husky, like stroked
velvet, a Negro woman’s, I’m sure, and the
other was lighter in tone, musical, but very
feeble, like that of a person sinking in a
swoon.”

"They did not speak?”

"Not in words, sir, but from their tones
I knew all three were very weak and ex-
hausted, so far gone that it seemed nothing
mattered to them.”

"U’m?” deGrandin took his little pointed
chin between a thoughtful thumb and fore-
finger. "And what did you do next, Mon-
sieur?”

Jaquay looked embarrassed. "We sent for
Dr. Van Artsdalen, sir.”

"Ah? And who is he, if one may in-
quire?”

"He’s pastor of the Union Church at
Harbordale, sir. We told him everything
that had happened, and he agreed to exor-
cise the house.”

” Mordieu , did you, indeed?” de Grandin
twisted the waxed ends of his small blond
mustache until they were as sharp as twin
needles. "And did he succeed in his mis-
sion?”

"I’m afraid he didn’t, sir. He read a por-
tion of the Scriptures from St. Luke, where
it says that power was given the Disciples to
cast out devils, and offered up a prayer, but
— we haven’t had a moment’s peace since,
sir.”

The little Frenchman nodded. "One un-
derstands all too well, Monsieur. The oc-
cultism, he is neither good nor safe for
amateurs to dabble in. This Doctor — the
gentleman with the so funny name — may be
an excellent preacher, but I fear he was out
of his element when he undertook to rid
your premises of unwelcome tenants. Who,
by example, told him they were devils he
came out to drive away?”

"Why— er — ” Jaquay ’s face reddened —
"I don’t think anybody did, sir. We told
him only what we had experienced, and he
assured us that evil is always subject to
good, and could not stand against the power
of — ”

"One understands completely,” de Gran-
din cut in sharply. "The reverend gentle-
man is also doubtless one of those who be-
lieve savage animals cannot stand the gaze
of the human eye, that sharks must turn
upon their back to bite, and that you are im-
mune from lightning-stroke if you have rub-
ber heels upon your shoes. In fine, one
gathers he is one of those who is not ignor-
ant because of what he does not know, but
because of the things he knows which are
not true. What has occurred since his visit?”

"All day we feel those unseen eyes
fairly boring into us; at night the sighs and
groans and chain-clankings begin almost as
soon as darkness comes and keeps up till
sunrise. Frankly, sir, we’re afraid to stay
in the place after sunset.”

The Frenchman nodded approval. "I
think that you are wise to absent yourselves,
Monsieur. For you to stay in that house
after dark would not be courageous, it
would be the valor of ignorance, and that,
parbleu, is not so good. No, not at all.

"Attend me, if you please: I have made
a study of such matters. To ’cast out devils,’
may be an act of Christian faith which any-
one possessing virtue may perform. Me, I
do not know. But I do know from long
experience that what will be effective in one
case will wholly fail in another. Do you
know surely what it is that haunts this

THREE IN CHAINS

35

house from which you have so wisely fled?
Did the good pasteur know? Do I know?
Non, pardieu, we grope in ignorance, all of
us! We know not what it is we have to con-
tend with. Attend me, Monsieur, if you
please, with great carefulness. As that very
learned writer, Manly Wade Wellman, has
observed, there are many sorts of disem-
bodied beings.

'In earth and sky and sea

Strange things there be.’

"There are, by example, certain ‘tilings
called elementals. These never were in hu-
man form; they have existed from the be-
ginning, and, I assure you, they are very
naughty. They are definitely unfriendly to
humankind; they are mischievous, they are
wicked. They should be given as wide a
berth as possible. It is safer to walk un-
armed through a jungle infested with blood-
hungry tigers than to frequent spots where
they are known to be, unless you are well-
armed with occult weapons, and even then
your chances are no better than those of the
hunter who goes out to trail the strong and
savage beast.

"Then there are those things we call
ghosts. They cannot be defined with nicety,
but as a class they are the immortal, or at
least the surviving spiritual part of that
which was once man or woman. These may
be either good, indifferent or bad. The bad,
of course, far outnumber the good, for the
great bulk of humanity that has died has not
been good. Alors, it behooves us to step
carefully when we have dealings with them.
You comprehend?

"Bien. It may well be the good pasteur
used the wrong technique when he assumed
to rid you of your so unwelcome cotenants.
He did not surely know his adversary; it is
entirely possible that he succeeded only in
annoying him as one might irritate/but not
cripple a lion by shooting him with a light
rifle. Alois out, it may be so. Let us now
proceed with system. Let us make a recon-
naissance, spy out the land, acquaint our-
selves with that with which we must match
forces.

"When this is done we shall proceed to
business, not before. No, certainly; by no
means.”

"Tell me, Friend Trowbridge,” he asked
at breakfast next morning, "what do
you know of this house from which Mon-
sieur and Madame Jaquay have been
driven?”

"Not much, I’m afraid,” I answered. "I
know it’s more than a hundred years old
and was built by Jacob Tofte whose family
settled in New Jersey shortly after the Dutch
wrested it from the Swedes in 1655.”
"U’m? It is the original structure?”

"As far as I know. They built for per-
manence, those old Dutchmen. I've never
been inside it, but I’m told its stone walls
are two feet think.”

"You do not know the year in which it
was erected?”

"About 1800, I believe. It must have
been before 1804, for there were originally
slave quarters on the back lot, and slaver)'
was abolished in New Jersey in that year.”
"Morbleu, pas possible i”

"What?”

"Oh, nothing of die consequence, my
friend. I did but entertain an idle thought.
Those ghostly sighs and groans, those
ghostly clankings of die chains, might not
they have some connection with slavery?”
"None that I can see.”

"And none, helas, diat leaps to my eye,
either,” he admitted with a smile as he rose.
"I did but toy with die suggestion.” He
lit a cigarette and turned toward the wall.
"Expect me when I return, mon vieux. I
have much ground to cover, and may be late
for dinner — may le bon Dieu grant other-
wise.”

The evening meal was long since over
when he returned, but that his day’s work
had not been fruitless I knew by the
twinkle in his little round blue eyes, and
his first words confirmed my diagnosis.
"My friend, I would not go so far as to
say I have found the key to this mystery,
but I damnation think that I can say under
which doormat the key hides.”

I motioned toward the decanter and
cigars, a work of supererogation, for he
was already pouring himself a generous
drink of brandy. " Bien oui,” he nodded
solemnly as he shot the soda hissing into
his glass. "All morning I did search, and
nowhere could I find a person who knew
much about that execrable Tofte House

36

WEIRD TALES

until I reached the County Historical So-
ciety’s archives. There I found more than
ample reward for my labors. There were
old deeds, old, yellowed newspapers; even
the diaries of old inhabitants. Yes.

"This Jacob Tofte, he who built that
house, must have been the devil of a fel-
low. In youth he followed the sea — eh bien,
who shall say how far he followed it, or
into what dark paths it led him? Those
were the days of sailing ships, my old and
rare, a man set forth upon a voyage new-
married and easily might find himself the
father of a five-year-old when he returned.
But not our friend old Jacob. Not he! He
traveled many times to Europe, more than
once to China and the Indies, and finally
to Africa. There he found his true voca-
tion. Yes.”

He paused, eyes gleaming, and it would
have been cruel to have withheld the ques-
tion he so obviously expected. "Did he be-
come a 'blackbirder,’ a slaver?” I asked.

"Parbleu, my friend, you have put your
finger on the pulse,” he nodded. "A slave
trader he became, vrabnent, and probably
a very good one, which means he must have
been a very bad man, cruel and ruthless,
utterly heartless. Tiens, die wicked old one
prospered, as the wicked have a way of
doing in this far from perfect world. When
he was somewhere between forty-five and
fifty years of age he returned to New Jer-
sey very well supplied with money, retired
from his gruesome trade and became a solid
citizen of the community. Anon he built
himself a house as solid as himself and
married.

"Now here — ” he leveled a slim fore-
finger at me like a pointed weapon —
"occurs that which affords me the small
inkling of a clue. The girl he married was
his cousin, Marise Tenbrocken. She was
but half his age and had been affianced to
her cousin Merthou Van Brundt, a young
man of her own age and the cousin, rather
more distantly, of Monsieur Jacob. One can-
not say with certainty if she broke her
engagement willingly or at parental insis-
tence. One knows only that Monsieur Jacob
was wealthy while young Monsieur Merthou
was very poor and had his way to make in
the world. Such things happened in the
old days as in the present, my friend.”

H E PAUSED a moment, took a sip of
brandy and soda, and lighted a cigar.
"Of these things I am sure,” he recom-
menced at length. "From there on one finds
only scattered bones and it is hard to recon-
struct the skeleton, much more so to hang
flesh upon the frame. Divorce was not as
common in those days as now, nor did
people wash domestic soiled linen in pub-
lic. We cannot surely know if this marriage
of May and October was a happy union. At
any rate the old Monsieur seems to have
found domestic life a trifle dull after so
many years of adventure, so in 1803 we
find him fitting out a small schooner to go
to New Orleans. Madame his wife re-
mained at home. So did her ci-devant
fiance, who had found employment, if not
consolation, in the offices of Peter Tandy,
a ship chandler.

"Again I have but surmise to guide me.
Did the almost-whitened embers of old love
spring into ardent flame once more when
Monsieur Van Brundt and Madame Tofte
found themselves free from the surveillance
of the lady’s husband, or had they carried
on a liaison beneath old Monsieur Jacob’s
nose? One wonders.

"En tout cos, Monsieur Jacob returned
all unexpectedly from his projected voyage
to New Orleans, dropping anchor in the
Bay but three weeks after he had left. With
Monsieur Tofte’s arrival we find Madame
Marise and her cousin, formerly her fiance,
and doubtless now her lover, vanishing com-
pletely. Pouf! Like that.”

“And what became of them?” I asked as
he remained silent.

"Qui droit? The devil knows, not I.
They disappeared, they vanished, they
evaporated; they were lost to view. With
them perhaps went one Celeste, a Marti-
nique mulatress Monsieur Jacob had bought
— or perhaps stolen — to be Madame
Marise’s waiting maid.

"Her disappearance seemed to cause him
more concern than that of Madame his wife
and his young cousin Merthou, for he ad-
vertised for her by handbill, offering a re-
ward of fifty dollars for her return. She
was, it seems, a valuable property, speaking
French, Spanish and English, understand-
ing needlework and cooking and the nice-
ties of the toilette. One would think he

THREE IN CHAINS

37

would have offered more for her, but prob-
ably he was a very thrifty man. At any
rate, it 4<>es not appear she was ever appre-
hended."

"And what became of Jacob Tofte?”

He shrugged his shoulders. "He sleeps,
one hopes peacefully, in the churchyard of
St. Chrysostom’s. There was a family
mausoleum on his land, but when he died
in 1835 he left directions for his burial in
St. Chrysostom’s, and devised five thousand
dollars to the parish. Tiens. he was a puzzle,
that one. His very tombstone presents an
enigma.”

"How’s that?”

"I viewed it in the churchyard today. Be-
sides his name and vital data it bears this
bit of doggerel:

'Beneath this stone lies f. Tofte ,

The last of five fine brothers.

He died more happy by his lone
And sleeps more sound than others /

"What do you make from that, hein?”
"Humph. Except that it’s more generous
in its substitution of adjectives for adverbs
than most epitaphs. I’d say it compares
favorably with the general level of grave-
yard poetry.”

"Perhaps,” he agreed doubtfully, "but
me, I am puzzled. 'He died more happy,’
says the epitaph. More happy than whom?
And than whom does he sleep more sound-
ly? Who are these mysterious others he
refers to?” .

"I can’t imagine. x Can you?”

"I — think — ” he answered, speaking
slowly, eyes narrowed, "I — think — I — can,
my friend.

"I have searched the title to that prop-
erty, beginning with Monsieur Jacob’s ten-
ancy. It has changed hands a surprising
number of times. Monsieur Molloy, from
whom Monsieur and Madame Jaquay in-
herited, was the fiftieth owner of the house.
He acquired it in 1930 at an absurdly small
price, and went to much expense to mod-
ernize it, yet lived in it less than a year.
There followed a succession of lessees, none
of whom remained long in possession. For
the past ten years the place was vacant. Does
light begin to percolate?”

I shook my head and he smiled rather

bleakly. "I feared as much. No matter.
Tomorrow is another day, and perhaps we
shall be all wiser then.”

“"V7'OU have no office hours today,
X n’est-ce-pas?" he asked me shortly
after breakfast the next morning.

"No, this is my Sabbatical,” I answered.
"One or two routine calls, and then — ”
"Then you can come to Tofte House with
us,” he interrupted with a smile. "I damn
think we shall see some things there to-
day.”

George and Georgine Jaquay were wait-
ing for us at the Berkeley-York where they
had taken temporary residence, and once
more I was struck by their amazing like-
ness to each other. George wore gray flan-
nels and a black Homburg, a shirt of white
broadcloth and a pearl-gray cravat; Georgine
wore a small black hat, a gray flannel man-
ishly-cut suit with a white blouse and a
little mauve tie at her throat. They were
almost exactly of a size, and their faces
similar as two coins stamped from the same
die. The wonder of it was, I thought, that
they required words to communicate with
each other.

The gentleman with them I took to be
their lawyer. He was about fifty, carefully
if somberly dressed in a formally-cut dark
suit with white edging marking the V of
his waistcoat. His tortoise-shell glasses were
attached to a black ribbon and in one gray-
gloved hand he held a black derby and a
black malacca cane.

"This is Monsieur Peteros, Friend Trow-
bridge,” de Grandin introduced when we
had exchanged greetings with the Jaquays.
"He is a very eminent medium who has
kindly agreed to assist us.”

Despite myself I raised my brows. The
man might have been an attorney, a banker
or mill-owner. Certainly he was the last-
one I should have picked as a practitioner
of the rather malodorous profession of
spiritualistic medium. Perhaps my face
showed more than I realized, for Mr. Pete-
ros’ thin lips compressed more tightly and
he acknowledged the introduction with a
frigid "How d’ye do?”

But if the atmosphere were chilly de
Grandin seemed entirely unaware of it.
"Come, mes amis,” he bade, "we are assem-

38

WEIRD TALES

bled and the time for action has arrived.
Let us go all soon and not delay one little
minute. No, certainly not.”

F RAMED by birch and oak, elm and
maple, the big old house in Andover
Road looked out upon a stretch of well-
kept lawn. It was built of native bluestone
without porches, and stood foursquare to
the highway. Its walls were at least two
feet thick, its windows high and narrow,
its great front door a slab of massive oak.
The sort of house a man who had been in
the slave trade might have put up, a verita-
ble fortress, capable of withstanding attacks
with anything less than artillery.

Jaquay produced his key and fitted it into
the incongruously modern lock of the old
door, swung back the white-enameled
panels and stood aside for us to enter. Mr.
Peteros went first with me close at his
elbow, and as I stepped across the sill I all
but collided with him. He had come to
an abrupt halt, his head thrown back, nos-
trils quivering like those of an apprehen-
sive animal. There was a nervous tic in his
left cheek, the comers of his mouth were
twitching. "Don’t you sense it?” he asked
in a voice that grated grittily in his throat.

Involuntarily I inhaled deeply. "No,” I
replied shortly. The only thing I "sensed”
was the Charbert perfume Georgine Jaquay
used so lavishly. I had no very high
opinion of mediums. If Peteros thought
he could set the stage to put us in a mood
for any "revelations” he might later make,
he’d have to try something Qiore subtle.

We stood in a wide, long hall, evidently
stretching to the rear of the house, stone-
floored and walled with rough-cast plaster.
The ceiling was of beamed oak and its great
timbers seemed to have been hand-squared.
The furniture was rather sparse, being for
the most part heavy maple, oak or hickory
— benches, tables and a few rush-bottomed
square-framed chairs, and though it had
small beauty it had value, for the newest
piece there must have been at least a hun-
dred years old. A fireplace stretched a full
eight feet across the wall to the right, and
on the bluestone slab that served for mantel
were ranged pewter plates and tankards and
a piece or two of old Dutch delft any one
of which would have fetched its weight in

gold from a knowing antique dealer. To
our left a narrow stairway with a handrail
of wrought brass and iron curved upward.

I was about to remark on the patent an-
tiquity of the place when de Graiiain’s sharp
command forestalled me: “It was in the
bedroom you had your so strange experi-
ences, my friends. Let us go there to see
if Monsieur Peteros can pick up any influ-
ences.”

Young Jaquay led the way, and we
trooped up the narrow stairway single file,
but halfway up I paused and grasped the
balustrade. I had gone suddenly dizzy and
felt chilled to the bone, yet it was not an
ordinary chill. Rather, it seemed a sudden
coldness started at my fingertips and shiv-
ered up into my shoulders, then, as with a
cramp induced by a galvanic battery, every
nerve in my body began to tingle and con-
tract.

Just behind me, Peteros grasped my
elbow, steadying me. "Swallow,” he com-
manded in a sharp whisper. "Swallow hard
and take a deep breath.” As I obeyed the
tingling feeling of paralysis left me and I
heard him chuckle softly. "I see you felt
it, too,” he murmured. "Probably you felt
it worse than I did; you weren’t prepared
for it.” I nodded, feeling rather foolish.

Apparently the Jaquays had refurnished
the bedroom, for it had none of the gloomy
eighteenth century air of the rest of the
house. The bedstead was a canopied four-
poster, either Adam or a good reproduc-
tion, a tall chest of mahogany stood against
one wall, between the narrow, high-set win-
dows was a draped dressing table in the
long mirror of which were reflected silver
toilet articles and crystal bottles. Curtains
of fluted organdie, dainty and crisp, hung
at the windows. The floor was covered with
an Abusson carpet.

"Bien.” De Grandin took command as
we entered the chamber. Will you sit
there, Madame?” he indicated a chintz-cov-
ered chair for Georgine. "And you, Mon-
sieur Jaquay, I would suggest you sit be-
side her. You may be under nervous strain.
To have a loving hand to hold may prove
of helpfulness. Mats out, do not I know? I
shall say yes. You, Friend Trowbridge, will
sit here, if you please, and Monsieur Pete-
ros will occupy this chair — ” he indicated a

THREE IN CHAINS

39

large armchair with high, tufted back. "Me,
I prefer to stand. Is all in readiness?”

"I think we’d better close the curtains,”
Peteros replied. “I seem to get the emana-
tions better in the dusk.”

"Bien. Mats certainement” The little
Frenchman drew the brocade over-draperies
of the windows, leaving us in semi-dark-
ness.

Mr. Peteros leant back and took a silver
pencil from his waistcoat pocket. Holding
it upright before his face, he fixed his eyes
upon its tip. A minute passed, two min-
utes; three. From the hall below came the
ponderous, pompous ticking of the great
clock, small noises from the highway— the
rumble of great cargo trucks, die yelp of
motor horns — came to us through the
closed and curtained windows. Peteros con-
tinued staring fixedly at the pencil point,
and in die semi-darkness his face was indis-
tinct as a blurred photograph. Then the
upright pencil wavered from the perpen-
dicular. Slowly, like a reversed pendulum,
or the arm of a metronome, it swung in a
short arc from right to left and back again.
His eyes followed it, converging on each
other until it seemed he made a silly grim-
ace. The silver rod paused in its course,
wavered like a tree caught in a sudden
wind, and dropped widi a soft thud to the
carpet. The medium’s head fell back
against the cushions of his chair, his eye-
lids drooped and in a moment came the
sound of measured breathing, only slightly
stertorous, scarcely more noticeable than the
ticking of the clock downstairs. I knit my
brows and shook my head in annoyance. 1
could have simulated a more convincing
trance. If he thought we could be imposed
upon by such a palpable bit of trickery. . . .

"O-o-o-oh!” Georgine Jaquay exclaimed
softly. She had raised one hand to her
throat and the painted nails of her out-
spread fingers were like a collar of garnets
on the white flesh.

I felt a sudden tenseness. Issuing from
Peteros’ lips was a thin column of smoke,
as if he had inhaled deeply from a cigar.
Yet it was not ^ordinary smoke. It had an
oddly luminous quality, as if its particles
were microscopic opals that glowed with
their own inward fire, and instead of com-
ine in a series of short puffs, as cigar smoke

would have come from his mouth, it flowed
in steady, even stream, like steam escaping
from a simmering kettle. "Regardez, s J il
vous plait, Friend Trowbridge,” de Grandin
whispered half belligerently. "I tell you it
is psychoplasm — soul stuff!”

T HE cloud of luminescent vapor drifted
slowly toward the ceiling, then as if
wafted by an unfelt zephyr coiled and
circled toward the wall pierced by the cur-
tained windows, and slowly, more like drip-
ping water than a cloud of steam or smoke,
began to trickle down the wall until it
covered it completely.

It is difficult to describe what happened
next. Slowly in the opalescent vapor that
obscured the wall there seemed to generate
small sparks of bluish light, mere tiny
points of phosphorescence, and gradually,
but with a gathering speed, they multiplied
until they floated like a swarm of dancing
midgets circling round each other till they
joined to form small nebulae of brightness
large as gleaming cigarette ends. The
nebulae became more numerous, touched
each other, coalesced as readily as rain drops
brought together, till they formed a barrier
of eerie, intense bluish light.

There was eeriness, uncanniness about k,
but it was not terrifying. Instead of fear 1
felt a sort of gentle melancholy. Vague,
long-forgotten memories wafted through ary
mind ... a girl's soft laugh, die touch at
a warm hand, the echo of the muted whis-
per of a once-loved voice, the subtle frag-
rance of old hopes and aspirations.

Half dazzled, wholly mystified by the
phenomenon, I watched die luminous air-
tain.

A sort of cloudiness appeared in its
bright depths, at first no more than a dim,
unformed network of small dots and
dashes, but gradually they built up a pat-
tern. As when an image appears on the
copper of a halftone plate in its -acid bath,
a picture took form on the surface of the
glowing curtain. As if through the pros-
cenium of a theatre — or on a motion pic-
ture screen — we looked into another room.

T recognized it instantly, so did Georgine
Jaquay, for I heard her gasp, "Why, it’s the
hall of this house!”

" Taisez-vous !” de Grandin snapped.

40

WEIRD TALES

"Laissez-moi tranquille, drl vous plait,
Madame! Be silent!"

It was the hall we had come through less
than ten minutes before, yet somehow it was
not the same. A great fire blazed on the
wrought-metal andirons and in a pair of
brass candlesticks tallow dips were burning.
The lights and shadows shifted constantly,
but such illumination as there was seemed
to do little more than stain the darkness.
The door through which we had come
opened and a middle-aged Negro dressed
in a suit of coarse tow came into the apart-
ment, bending almost double under the
weight of a brass-bound trunk of sole
leather. He paused uncertainly a moment,
seemed to turn as if to hear some com-
mand shouted at him from outside, then
shambled toward the stairway.

The door, which had swung partly shut,
was kicked back violently, and across the
sill a man stepped with a woman in his
arms. He was a big man, tall and heavy-set,
with enormous shoulders and great depth
of chest, dressed in the fashion of a hun-
dred years and more ago. His suit of heavy
woolen stuff was snuff -colored, made with
a long coat and breeches reaching to his
knees, and his brown stockings were of
knitted wool but little better than those of
the Negro. I guessed his age as somewhere
near fifty, for there were streaks of gray
in the long hair that he wore plaited in a
queue and in the short dark reddish beard
and mustache that masked his lower face.
He had a big nose, dark hawk-eyes, broad
low forehead and high-jutting cheek-bones.
His skin was darkly tanned, and though he
had few wrinkles they were deep ones. He
was, I thought, a well-to-do farmer, per-
haps a merchant sea captain. Certainly he
was no gentleman, and just as certainly he
was a hard customer, tricky and unscrupu-
lous in bargaining and fierce and ruthless
in a fight.

Of the woman we could see little, for a
long hooded cloak of dark blue linsey-wool-
sey covered her from head to heels. What
was at once apparent, however, was that she
did not snuggle in his arms. She neither
held his shoulders nor put her arms about
his neck, merely lay quiescent in his grasp
as if she rested after an exhausting ordeal,
or realized the futility of struggling.

But when he set her on her feet we saw
that she was very delicately made, not tall
but seeming taller than her actual height
because of extreme slenderness. She was
pretty, almost beautiful, with a soft cream-
and-carnation skin, bronze hair that posi-
tively flamed in the firelight, and eyes of
luminous greenish violet with the wonder-
ing expression of a hurt child.

The man said something to her and with
a start 1 realized we witnessed a pantomime,
a scene of vibrant life and action sound-
less as an old-time moving picture, but
legible in meaning as sky-writing on a wind-
less day. We saw her shake her small head
in negation, then as he echoed his peremp-
tory demand hold out her hands in a ges-
ture of entreaty. Her face was bloodless
and her eyes suffused with tears, but if she
had been a bird and he a cat her appeal
could not have been more futile. Abruptly
he seized her left hand and raised it to a
level with her eyes, and on its third finger
we saw the great, heavy plain gold band
that marked her as a matron. For a moment
he stood thus, then flung the little hand
from him as if it were a bit of dross and
grasped the trembling girl in his arms,
crushed her to him and bruised her shrink-
ing lips with kisses that betrayed no trace
of love but were afire with blazing passion.

When he released her she shrank back,
cheeks aflame with outraged blood and eyes
almost filmy with nausea, but as he repeated
his command she crept rather than walked
to the stairway and mounted it slowly, hold-
ing fast to the wrought-brass handrail for
support.

T HE man turned toward the kitchen, bel-
lowing an order and into the hall stole
another girl about the age of her whom he
had just mauled so lustfully. She was a
mulatress, scarce larger than a child, with
delicately formed features, short wavy
brown hair clustering round her ears and
neck in tiny ringlets, and large dark eyes
as gentle — and as frightened — as a gazelle's.
Despite the almost shapeless gown of
woolen stuff that hung on her we saw her
figure was exquisite, with high breasts, nar-
row hips and lean, small waist. She bore a
straw-wrapped stone demijohn stopped
with a broken corncob, and at his order

THREE IN CHAINS

A l

took a pewter tankard from the mantel and
poured some of the colorless contents of
her jar into it. "More!” We could not
hear the word, but it required no skill in
lip-reading to know what he ordered, and
with a shrug that was no more than a flut-
ter of her shapely shoulders she splashed an
added half-pint of liquor into the beaker.

It was obvious she was afraid of him,
for she stayed as far away as she could, and
her large eyes watched him furtively. When
she had filled the mug she stood back quick-
ly, pretending to be busy with recorking
the bottle, but obviously eager to stay out
of reach.

Her stratagem was futile, for when he
downed the draft he wiped his mouth upon
his cuff and held out his hand. "Kiss it!”
we saw, rather than heard him order. She
took his rough paw in her delicate gold
hands and bent her sleek head over it, but
he would not let her kiss its back. "Not
that way!” he bade roughly, and obedient-
ly she turned it over and pressed her lips
to its palm.

Why he demanded this peculiar form of
homage I had no idea, but evidently de
Grand in understood its implication, for I
heard him mutter, " Sale bete — dirty beast!”

The bearded man threw back 'his head
and laughed a laugh that must have filled
the house with its bellow, then half play-
fully but wholly viciously he struck the girl
across the face with a back-handed blow
that sent her reeling to a fall beside the
tiled hearth of the fireplace. The demijohn
slipped from her hand, and in a moment a
dark stain of moisture spread across the
stones.

We saw him beckon her imperiously, saw
her rise trembling to her feet and slink to-
ward him, her wide eyes fearful, her lips
trembling. Nearer she crept, shaking her
head from side to side, begging mutely
for mercy, and when she was within arm’s
length he seized her as a pouncing beast
might grasp its prey. As a terrier might
shake a rat he shook her, swaying her slim
shoulders till her head bobbed giddily and
her short curls waved like wind-whipped
bunting round her ears. Protesting help-
lessly she opened her mouth and the force
with which he shook her drove her teeth
together on her tongue so that a little stream

of blood came from the corners of her
mouth. Then, not content with this punish-
ment, he struck her with his fist, knocking
her to the floor, then raising her again that
he might strike her down once more. Three
times he hit her with his knotted fist, and
every blow drew blood. When he was done
he left her in a little crumpled heap beside
the hearthstone, her slim gold hands held
to her face and bright blood dripping from
her nose, her lips and her bruised cheeks.

r Cochon, pourceau, sale chatneau!” de
Grandin whispered venomously. "Pardieu,
he was a species of a stinking swine, that
one!”

The big man wiped his mouth upon his
sleeve once more and, swaying slightly from
the effect of the potent apple-jack, made
for the stairway up which the girl he had
borne into the house had crept.

T HE picture before us began to fade, not
growing dimmer but apparently dissolv-
ing like a cloud of steam before a current
of air, and in a . moment little dots and
lines of color danced and moved across the
luminous screen, forming figures like the
prisms of a kaleidoscope, then gradually
merging to depict another scene.

Not very different from its present as-
pect, save that its lawn was not so well
kept, the front yard of the house spread
before us. It was early evening, and from
the marshes — long since filled in and built
over — rose a soft, light mist, silvery, un-
earthly, utterly still. The trees that rimmed
the highway were almost denuded of their
foliage and stood out in sharp silhouette,
pointing to the pale sky from which most
of the stars had been wiped by a half-
moon’s light. An earlier wind had blown
the fallen leaves across the bricked walk
with its low box borders, and the man and
woman walking away from us kicked them
from their path, rustling them against their
feet as children love to do in autumn. At
the lower end of the footway they paused
and as the girl turned her face up to her
escort we recognized the young woman we
had seen borne into the house. The moon-
light brought them into clear-cut definition.
The man was young, about the girl’s age,
and bore a strong resemblance to her, obvi-
ously a family likeness. His clothes and

42

WEIRD TALES

linen were threadbare but scrupulously
clean, and his lean drawn face showed the
effect of high ambition and slender re-
sources. What they said we had no way of
knowing, but we saw her arms creep up
around his neck, not passionately, but ten-
derly, like the tendrils of a vine, as she
raised her lips for his kiss. A moment they
stood thus in silent embrace, then she un-
clasped her arms from his neck and he
turned away, walking down the moonlit
highroad with no backward glance and with
squared shoulders, like a man who has made
final, immutable decision.

O NCE more the scene was obscured, then
took on new form, and we saw the
white girl and the mulatress working fever-
ishly packing a small nail-studded trunk.
They folded linen underwear and sprinkled
it with crumbled dry lavender, pressed a
woolen dress down on the antique lingerie,
added several pairs of cotton stockings and
a pair of square-toed little buckled shoes.
The box was packed and strapped, the girl
ran to the door, but paused upon die
threshold, the joy wiped from her face as
sunlight disappears before a sudden cloud.

In the entrance stood die bearded man,
and over one shoulder, as a butdier might
have held a new -slaughtered calf, he bore
the body of the young man we had seen
before. Blood trickling from a scalp-wound
told us how the boy had been bludgeoned,
and on the barrel of the antique horse-
pistol in the big man’s right hand there was
a smear of blood to which a few brown
hairs adhered.

There was something utterly appalling in
the big man’s quietness. Methodically as if
he followed a rehearsed plan he dropped
the unconscious man on die bed, retraced his
steps to the door and returned with three
short lengths of iron chain which he pro-
ceeded to fasten round the necks of the two
women and die swooning man.

Amazingly the women made no effort to
resist but stood as dumbly and quiescently
as well-trained horses waiting to be har-
nessed as he latched the fetters on dieir
throats. Perhaps die memory of past beat-
ings told them that submissiveness was
wiser, perhaps they . realized the hopeless-
ness of entreaty or effort. It was very quick-

ly accomplished, and in a moment the big
man had shouldered the unconscious youth
again, tucked the little trunk beneath his
free arm, and nodded toward the door.
Without a word of protest or entreaty the
women went before him, holding the free
ends of their neck chains in their hands as
if to still their clinking.

W E LOOKED into a little room, per-
haps some twelve feet square, stone-
floored, stone-walled, stone-ceilinged. ' It
was darker than a moonless midnight, but
somehow we could distinguish objects.
About die walls were small partitioned
spaces rising four deep, tier on tier, like
oversized pigeonholes, and each was closed
with a stone slab in which a heavy ring-
bolt had been set. Something like a swarm
of small red ants seemed crawling up the
backs of my knees and my 9pine. One did
not need to be an antiquarian to recognize
die crypts of an old family tomb.

Something stirred in the darkness, and as
I strained my eyes toward it 1 saw die hud-
dled form of a woman. I knew it for a
woman by the long red hair that hung upon
its head, but otherwise, although it had
been stripped of clothing, ft was almost
undassifiable. Emaciation was so far ad-
vanced that she was litde more dian a
mummy. Knee- and elbow-joints stood
out against the staring skin like apples on
broomsticks, the hip-bones showed like
ploughshares each side the pelvis, the ribs
were like the bars of a grating, and every
tooth was outlined through the shrunken
lips.

The creature bent its skull-face to the
stone pavement and licked a little moisture
from die trickle of a tiny spring-fed rivulet
that crossed the flags, dien tried to rouse
itself to a sitting posture, tried vainly again,
and sank back limply. Slowly, painfully,
as if it fought paralysis, it edged across the
cold damp stones of the floor, stretched out
a bony, tendon-scored hand toward another
thing that crouched against the farther wall.

This was — or had been — a man, but now
it was no better than a ske4eton held in
articulation by the skin stretched drum-tight
over it. It seemed to rouse to semi-con-
sciousness by the other’s movement, and
tried desperately to reach the widiered hand

THREE IN CHAINS

43

stretched toward it. In vain. The chains
that tethered the whimpering woman-lich
and her companion were barely long
enough to stretch from their ring-bolts to
the floor, leaving the captives just length of
leash enough to lie on the floor, but not
permitting them sufficient movement to
reach each other, even when their arms were
stretched to fullest extent.

And as we watched the prisoners
struggle futilely to bring their dying hands
together we saw something flutter feebly
in the darkness at the rear of the tomb.
Chained like the other two the golden-
skinned mulatress lay against the wall, and
constantly her head turned from side to
side and her emaciated body shook with
unremitting spasms.

" Cordieu , but it was monstrous, that!”
de Grandin whispered grittily. "Not con-
tent with making them die horribly by slow
starvation; not content with making it im-
possible for them so much as to join hands
in their extremity, he chained that other
poor one with them that they should be
denied all privacy, even in the hour of
death!”

He struck his hands together sharply.
"Monsieur!” he called. "Monsieur Peteros!”

The gruesome scene before us faded as
if it had been frescoed on wax melting in
quick heat, and through the semi-darkness
of the room there swirled a wraithlike cloud
of gleaming vapor that hovered like a nim-
bus above the medium a moment, then, as
if he had inhaled it, was absorbed by him.
"Eh?” Peteros murmured sleepily. "Did I
go into a trance? What did I say?”

"Not a word, Monsieur,” de Grandin
told him. "You were as dumb as an infant
oyster, but through your help we are much
wiser. Yes. Certainly. Stay here and rest,
for you must be exhausted. The rest of us
have duties to perform. Come, mes amis,”
he looked at me and the Jaquays in turn,
"let us go to that abominable tomb,
that never-to-be-quite-sufficiently-anathema-
tized sepulchre. We are a century and
more too late — we cannot rescue them,
betas, but we can give them what they
most desire. Of a surety.”'

W ITH a crowbar we forced back the
rust-bound iron door of the Tofte

mausoleum and after standing back a mo-
ment for the outer air to enter de Grandin
led the way into the tomb, playing the
beam of his flashlight before him.

"Voyez! Voila que!” he ordered as the
shifting shaft of light stabbed through the
murky darkness. Death lay at our feet.
Arranged in orderly array as if they waited
articulation by an osteologist were the bones
of three skeletons. Dangling from the ring-
bolts of three stone-sealed crypts to the
floor beside the skulls were lengths of rust-
bitten iron chain. The disintegration of
the prisoners’ upper spinal columns had
loosed the loops of iron latched about
their throats. We had no difficulty determ in*
ing their sex. Even if the widely-opened
sciatic notches of the pelvic bones and the
smoothly curved angular fronto-nasal articu-
lation of the skulls had not denoted the
female skeletons to de Grandin’s practiced
eye and mine the pitiful relics lying by
two of the skulls would have told their story
— the amethyst-set gold earrings of the
white girl and the patina-encrusted copper
loops that once had hung in the mulatress'
little ears.

The Frenchman stepped back, bowing as
if he addressed three living people. "Mes
pauvres,” he announced softly, "we are
come to give you release from your earth-
bound state. Your pleas have been heard:
you shall be together in what remains of
the flesh. The evil man who boasted of his
better, sounder sleep — parbleu, but Jules de
Grandin makes a monkey out of him!”

"It is a case for the coroner,” he told us
as we walked back to the house. "We need
not tell the things that we saw in the bed-
room. The circumstances of the disappear-
ance of Madame Tofte and Monsieur Van
Brundt as they appear in the historical rec-
ords, together with the advertisement crafty
old Monsieur Jacob broadcast for the re-
turn of die poor Celeste, will be sufficient
to establish their identity. As to the man-
ner of their death — eh bien, does it not pro-
claim itself? But certainly.”

He smiled grimly. "And that old hypo-
crite who lies so snugly in St. Chrysostom’s
churchyard — though it is late in overtaking
him his sin has found him out at last. The
jury of the coroner cannot help but name
him as the murderer of those poor ones.”

44

WEIRD TALES

T HE dinner at die Berkeley-York had
been a huge success. Consomme de
tortue vert with sherry, buitres Francois
with Chablis, truite Margery with Meurs-
ault, coq an vin with Nuits St. Georges and
finally crepes Sussettes with cointreau. As
the waiter poured the coffee and Chartreuse
I fully expected to hear de Grandin purr. "I
suppose it’s your theory that the stone and
timbers of Tofte House held a certain psy-
chic quality derived from association with
the tragedy of Marise Tofte and Merthou
Van Brundt, or that these unhappy lovers
in the stress of their emotion passed on
lasting thought-emanations to their inani-
mate surroundings?” I asked him. “I’ve
heard you say that dreams or visions can be
evoked in psychically sensitive persons when
they’re permitted to sleep in a room with a
diip from a house where some atrocious
crime has been committed, or — ”

“I would not quite say that,” he inter-
rupted with a smile as he took a morsel of
pink peppermint between his teeth and
sipped a little black coffee. "This, I think,
is what we might call a genuine ghost story,
one where the earthbound spirits of the
dead, denied the rites of Christian burial,
sought constantly for help from the living.

“Consider, if you please: That Madame
Marise and Monsieur Merthou were about
to elope, accompanied by the slave girl
Celeste, we have no doubt at all. Also, after
seeing what a bete has she had for husband
one cannot greatly blame her, especially as
she was still in love with her cousin who
seems to have been a quiet, amiable young
man. Yes.

"Next, we know the naughty old Mon-
sieur Jacob laid a trap for diem. He pre-
tended to go on a long voyage, gave them
barely time to renew love and make plans
for eloping then pouf! swooped down on
them like a cat on two luckless mice. The
sad rest we know also.

“When he had chained them like brute

beasts they died all miserably in die tomb,
and their poor, starved bodies lay un-
buried. What then? Year after painful year
they sought to tell their plight to those who
came to live in that old house, but always
tiiey did fail. Those whom, they begged
for help were frightened and ran off.

“But finally these unhappy cousins who
were thwarted in their love were visited by
cousins fate had given to each other. And
so it came about that we, with Monsieur
Peteros’ assistance, found their pitiful re-
mains, had their killer branded as a mur-
derer, and after proper rites laid them in
consecrated ground. Yes, certainly.”

A grim expression settled on his lips.
“That poor Celeste, the slave girl, she gave
me some trouble,” he confided.

“How’s that?” asked Georgine Jaquay.

“The sexton of St. Chrysostom’s told me
the ground was reserved for the burial of
white people exclusively. ' Monsieur / I say
to him, 'this are no woman, but a skeleton
I seek to have interred here, and the skele-
ton of a young girl of color is white as that
of a Caucasian. Besides, if you persist in
your pig-odious refusal I shall have to tweak
your far from handsome nose.’ Hens , he
let us bury her beside those whose death she
had shared.”

Georgine Jaquay gave a short neighing
laugh, the sort of laugh a person gives to
keep from weeping, but in a moment tears
glinted on her lashes. “Do you suppose it
was because they were cousins, and George
and I are cousins, that they finally found
peace through us?” she asked.

He raised his narrow shoulders in the
sort of shrug no one but a Frenchman can
achieve. "Who knows, Madame ? It are
entirely possible,” he answered. Then with
one of his quick elfin grins, “Or possibly
it were because you and Monsieur your hus-
band had the good sense to consult Jules
de Grandin. He is a very clever fellow, that
one.”

I T WAS early morning when we arrived
in Paris. Somehow in those pre-war
days it always seemed to be between
one and four in the morning when the train
slid into the station, no matter how you
planned. So, here were we, at 4 a. m.,

surrounded with luggage in a taxi, on our
way to the Albion, the little hotel where
Godfrey and I always stayed.

It was a charming hotel, quite unknown
to the general public, found for us by some
French friends. Godfrey and I were crazy

45

46

WEIRD TALES

about it. This was the first time we’d come
without reservations. Godfrey had no doubt
they’d take us in, but I was not so sanguine.
I didn’t mind picking up tilings at a mo-
ment’s notice and running off with Godfrey
- — he loved the excitement of doing the
unexpected and I loved him — but I usually
wired ahead for rooms wherever we were
going. This time there literally had been
no opportunity to do so and as the taxi drew
up before the Albion and honked its horn
with the pathos only a French cab can man-
age, I was worried.

It soon appeared that my forebodings
were justified. The clerk, Raoul, whom
we knew extremely well, was glad to see us,
but not overjoyed as he ordinarily would
have been. He was full of apologies and
lamentations. ’’But there is nothing for
Madame and Monsieur. Not a single room
in the hotel. I am desolate, but it is so. If
you had only wired ahead ...”

I took the bull by the horns. "But, we
did, Raoul! Do you mean you didn’t get
the telegram? We sent it two days ago."

Two days ago we had been in London
without the slightest idea of Paris in our,
or rather Godfrey’s head. But I always be-
lieve if one is going to lie, it might as well
be wholeheartedly.

Raoul wrung his hands. "Oh, Madame,
I am devastated. But there is nothing ...”
"But surely,” Godfrey’s calm English
voice broke in, "you’ve got some corner
you can tuck us in for the night. You
can’t turn us out at this hour! Then tomor-
row you can fix us up.”

A kind of struggle went on in Raoul’s
face. It was plain to see he was in an agony
of indecision. Finally one side of his prob-
lem won. But it was obvious, with great
reluctance pn his part. "There is a suite,
on the garden side, perhaps — just for to-
night — or what is left of the night — ”
"Splendid. And I assure you we won’t
mind the extra charge,” added my practical
husband.

Raoul turned to the combination key and
letter rack behind him, extracted a key, and
called to the bellboy, "Here Pierre. Take
Monsieur and Madame to No. 217.”

“217?” The boy, half awake, seemed
incredulous.

“217,” Raoul repeated with an emphasis

that stopped whatever the boy had been go-
ing to say. Silently he picked up our bags
and led the way to the elevator that had
been installed in the well of the stairway —
one of those open-cage affairs the French
delight in, but which my American remem-
brance of what an elevator can be, dislikes
intensely.

As we ascended Raoul called out, "Dor-
inez bien;' and Pierre made a sound that
up in the Bronx they call a cheer. Evi-
dently he thought we wouldn’t sleep well,
and I wondered if he had labeled us as
bride and groom. He was a new addition
to the Albion. He didn’t know we’d been
coming there for over five years.

He threw open the door of No. 217,
turned on the light, sidled the bags in, and
was off so quickly that he missed the silver
Godfrey had ready to give him. "Remark-
able,” I exclaimed. Then, as I took in
the really charming room, added, "God-
frey, this is the real thing.”

I T WAS. Boiserie of an elegance and
charm that went with powdered hair,
bright silks, and jeweled hands. The deli-
cately carved wood was painted that soft
shade of grayish blue which no modern
materials can quite achieve. The room had
probably been a card room in the time of
Marie Antoinette. I could picture the gay
scene that had been reflected in the lovely
old mirror that was set into the wall above
the fireplace. The furniture was gilt and
covered in a salmon-pink damask. The
whole effect was exquisite.

"This stuff must be worth a great deal,”
again my practical husband was speaking.
"It’s genuine — -the whole room is a museum
piece. Don't wonder they don’t like to rent
it. Let’s look at the bedroom — ” He threw
open the door and switched on die light.

It was charming, too, but in an utterly
different way. It was completely modern,
ivory paint, a gay flowered wallpaper of
pale yellow with red and blue flowers and
a matching chintz for curtains, bedspreads,
and slip covers. It sounds wild, but the
effect was a sunshiny bower of roses. The
furniture was ivory. It was all sweetness
and light before I stepped over the thresh-
old. The instant I was in the room, I felt
differently. Despite the gayety and the wink-

THE MAN IN PURPLE

47

in g brightness of a crystal chandelier, obvi-
ously converted from candles to electricity, I
felt a sense of gloom. It was as though a
mantle of depression had been flung over
my spirit. '

"It’s a very gay room,” my husband said.

"Gay looking ” I amended. Then I
voiced my thoughts. "Don’t you think it’s
odd Raoul held out on us. He was all
ready to turn us away — with this up his
sleeve.”

"Faker! Probably so he can over-
charge — ”

Godfrey was most likely right. I was
silly to go imagining things because of cir-
cumstances — the odd glance between Raoul
and Pierre, and my own sudden depression.
The latter wasn’t due to the room. It could
not be — it was my own fatigue catching up
with me.

G ODFREY lugged in the bags, grumbling
against Pierre’s laziness. I started to
say, "Maybe the boy didn’t want to come in
here,” but I caught the words back, and
went about my preparations for bed. It
was when I was in the bathroom cleaning
my teeth that I heard the first knock!

I thought Pierre might have had a
troubling conscience and come back. When
it came again, I called out: "Why don’t
you go to the door, Godfrey?"

"Why?” his matter-of-fact voice came
back.

"Knocking — ”

"Didn’t hear anything,” but he went
through to the living room and I heard
him open the door. When lie came back he
was laughing. "Must be hearing things, old
girl.”

My twenty-two years always shrink away
from Godfrey’s "old girl,” even though I
know it’s meant as a form of endearment.

"Didn’t you hear anything?” I asked,
when reluctantly I returned to the gay room.
"No 1 .” Godfrey was bland.

Just at that moment the knocking started
again. From Godfrey’s start I knew he
heard it too. That was a relief! I didn’t
want to hear noises no one else did.

"People next door,” Godfrey said.

"At this hour?”

"Paris is noted for the hours it keeps.
They’ve probably been sampling champagne

from boite to boite, and are now returning
from making a night of it.”

I wasn’t up to arguing. I kissed God-
frey goodnight, and went over to my own
twin bed, Godfrey already having made
himself comfortable in the other. As I
shed by negligee, he turned out the light.
Presently I heard his even breathing. I
counted his respirations to drown out the
knocks which were coming more frequently
now. They obviously didn’t bother him,
but they did things to me. The linen sheets
were cold and clammy. So was I, but not
because of them. I was afraid!

There was something strange about these
rooms. Raoul wouldn’t have held out on
us without a good reason. He had ob-
viously given them to us with great reluc-
tance. I was beginning to understand why.
The knocking was getting louder now. It
seemed to be coming from everywhere —
all around my head. If it were the people
next door, they were bowling on the wall
behind my bed. It was only because I was
completely exhausted that I fell asleep. Or,
was it sleep? One minute I was exasper-
ated at the knocking and afraid of some-
thing, I didn’t know what. The next minute
the knocking ceased and I was afraid —
afraid of the man in purple!

H E STOOD in the doorway, very tall,
very elegant, with a purple moire
waistcoat lavishly embroidered in heavy
gold thread. He wore it over a lavender
vest, and he had on purple satin trousers
that ended below his knee. A diamond
buckle fastened them and they undoubtedly
served as garters for his elegant purple hose.
He wore black slippers with diamond buc-
kles. There was a flash of the same stones
on the vest and real lace cascaded down his
front and from his sleeves. His hair was
powdered, and his face was utterly evil. The
Marquis de Sade must have looked like that
about midway in his career, when the good
looks nature had endowed him with were
being superseded by the ideas and practices
that were essentially his own.

The man in purple was handsome. I
could see him plainly by the light coming
through the transom. A truly elegant figure
of a man, but his lips were sensuous and
cruel, his eyes cold, yet compelling in some

48

WEIRD TALES

strange, fascinating way. He looked toward
me and I turned cold in my innermost veins.
"If he speaks to me, I shall die," I thought.

But he didn’t. His black malicious eyes
held mine and he came nearer.

I couldn’t move. If he’d been a snake
charmer and I the snake, I couldn’t have
been more in his power, although the illus-
tration was twisted, for it was he who re-
sembled the snake, not I. Even his pow-
dered wig didn’t disguise the fact his head
was shaped like an adder’s head. He came
up to the bed, close to me, while I lay
completely paralyzed with fear beyond any-
thing I could describe. Then he put his
arms up, shook the lace back from his wrists
and reached for my throat!

From somewhere I got strength enough
to scream. The next second the man in
purple had gone, and Godfrey was beside
me. "What on earth — ?” he was saying.

*T had a dream,” I gasped. “A hor-
rible dream — ” but even while I said the
words, I knew it hadn't been a dream. The
man in purple had been real.

Eventually Godfrey went back to bed and
to sleep. Nothing disturbed him. This
time I went to sleep, but the man in purple
was in my dreams, coming to me, freeing
his wrists from the lace, reaching for my
throat — finding it!

I woke up gasping for air, with actual
pressure on my windpipe. It was more
than a dream. The man in purple had
come again.

I couldn’t stand any more of this. I knew
now it was a ghost. The man in purple had
to be a ghost. There was no other explana-
tion possible. I was quite sure, and fur-
ther, positive that was the reason Raoul
hadn’t wanted us to stay. He knew about
that man in purple.

I had two alternatives — to wake Godfrey,
or get away from this' room. Unfortu-
nately for me, I chose the latter. Godfrey
looked so comfortable I hated to rouse him
again, and besides, I knew he’d laugh at
the idea of a ghost. So I got out of bed,
took the inevitable taffeta-covered eider-
down quilt always to be found on French
beds, and tiptoed into the sitting room. I
curled up in the eiderdown on the couch.

Again, I couldn’t sleep. The man in
purple was in my thoughts. I couldn’t

shake him off. I kept seeing him and his
gesture of freeing his hands from encum-
brances so that he would be free to mur-
der. I kept feeling his hands reaching for
my throat. But at long, long last, with
the assistance of at least two hundred and
fifty sheep that I laboriously counted, I fell
into the deep sleep of utter exhaustion that
comes when one is worn out mentally as
well as physically.

A whispering woke me up — a whispering
in French — French of the old style. If I
hadn’t spoken the language like a native
I wouldn’t have understood the whisper-
ings. As it was, it was difficult — just as
strange as listening to the talk of our Found-
ing Fathers would be to modern ears.

The whispers said over and over, "Bring
her here, Pierre. Bring her here to me and
then go. Do not return no matter what
you hear.” And then there was a pause —
a silence, while I heard a door shut and
footsteps walk away. Then the whispers
began again. "Soon, soon she will come,’
repeated a voice which had a hard quality
underneath the softness of its tone and an
underlying cruelty, and I knew that it was
the voice of the man in purple, but I could
not see him. I knew fear again and shrank
into the eiderdown. Suppose those hands
found my throat again — suppose — I
wanted to scream, to run to Godfrey, but
I couldn’t move, and in the strange night-
mare of events I know I shouldn’t, and the
knowledge was horrible.

The whisperings were gaining strength
and volubility. It was an ordinary voice that
spoke now in that antiquated French. "She
is coming — she is here.” As he mouthed
the last word I could see him. It was the
man in purple standing by the carved man-
telpiece, watching the door. He was quite
tangible, there was nothing ghost-like about
him — no transparency, no luminosity — just
a man out of another world. An evil man
— his lips strained back from his teeth as a
dog’s do at the kill.

The door swung open, and I gasped. For
there coming into the room was myself!
Not the American Helen married to the
English Godfrey, but a French Helene. Not
the frightened girl crouching on the sofa
in her own time, but a frightened girl from
some other age. The two entities were sepa-

THE MAN IN PURPLE

49

rate, yet she was part of me just as I was
part of her. 1 had been that girl, and I was
looking at my own past — !

She was in the room now, sweeping low
to the floor in a curtsey of the utmost grace.
"Monsieur,” she said, gently, but because
she and I were one, I knew the effort she
made to keep her voice steady. I felt the
chill of her finger-tips, the frantic beating
of her heart.

He raised her cold fingers to his lips.
She shrank away from his touch. “So,
Mademoiselle la Comtesse, you hate me for
what I have done?”

She made no answer except with her eyes
which justified his statement.

He let go her hand. "Yet I saved your
father — ”

“At a price, Monsieur.” There was
scorn in her voice.

He bowed. "As you say — at a price.
Still, he is safe in England. That should
be a fair exchange.”

"My father would not think so — ^ There
was color in her pale cheeks as she spoke,
but it faded rapidly away.

"Nor do you — ” his lips curved back
from his teeth again in a gesture that was
completely feline. "And what is more, you
do not let me forget it. Your hatred for
me is a wall between us. Your scorn is
sharp knives that cut my flesh. Yes, great
though I am, I feel small before you, and
that is not to be endured.”

"I cannot change my feelings, Mon-
sieur.” There was triumph on her face, all
the more intense because it was restrained.

"But I can change your feelings, Made-
moiselle! I can allow them the expanse of
heaven, where the priests tell us there is
only love, where I shall not be able to see
them.” He raised his hands in that familiar
gesture, shaking back the lace to leave them
free, and advanced toward her.

I felt the terror sweep over her, the
loneliness, the pain. "Never to see my
father again,” she thought. "To have
brought him to safety and not to share
it. I would be glad to die were it not for
him, but he needs me.” Then as the man
in purple advanced toward her, she sank
down on her knees.

"Oh, Monsieur, I beg you spare my life.
You promised once my father was safe,

I could go to him. Surely you will not go
back on your word. See, I who are proud,
kneel before you.”

I could have told her there was no use.
I could see the inexorable purpose in those
uplifted hands.

The man in purple laughed. It was a
horrible laugh, deadly in intent. "So, the
Comtesse de Treves begs — and for once
there is no sneer in her voice. Too late, my
dear. Too late, Mademoiselle. Hate rouses
hate.”

She looked up at him then. "You are
right, Monsieur. Hate rouses hate. It
feeds upon it too, and I tell you now that
my hate will live on down through the cen-
turies until we two meet again, and the
tables are turned.”

"I will conquer then as I conquer now.”
He was almost within reach of her.

"Then I will come back again and again
— age after age, and in the end, the score
will be evened. I vow it so, Monsieur.
Here and now, with death staring me in
the face. And I curse you as no man has
ever been cursed before. Here you shall
stay and wait until I come again and
then — ”

T HE hands of the man in purple flashed
downwards to her throat, choking the
words back into it, exerting more and more
pressure until only her eyes blazed hate.
Then he let go.

I was gasping — struggling and every-
thing was growing black. There were
fingers on my throat. Was I feeling the
sensations of my ancient self that realis-
tically?

This time the man in purple hadn’t been
touching me. It was the Comtesse de
Treves whose throat he held between those
strong white hands, into whose windpipe
the iron fingers pressed. And yet, with a
tremendous effort I opened my eyes. There
was no Comtesse de Treves. There was
no man in purple. But there were fingers
around my throat — exerting such pressure
that I could hardly breath — strong, white,
deadly fingers — Godfrey’s fingers! And
everything was growing black. There were
fingers on my throat, and I was feeling the
sensations of my ancient self — but, God-
frey’s fingers were dispensing death! His

50

WEIRD TALES

face had no expression whatsoever. It was
the face of a sleep-walker or a zombie, but
his fingers were alive.

I tried to break their hold. I tried to
scream, to pull those hands away from my
throat — but I couldn’t.

If it hadn’t been for the eiderdown I
should have been dead already. But I had
drawn it up close around me and it was
between my throat and those terrible fingers
of Godfrey’s. Even in the haze that was
coming over me, I couldn't reconcile my
thoughts to their being Godfrey’s. The com-
forter prevented the fingers getting an ab-
solute hold. It was slippery and the fact
of it being there enabled me to breath a
little. I saw that soon Godfrey's fingers
would get a strangle hold. I had only a
minute. There was a table beside the couch
with an old porcelain vase on it. Somehow
I managed to reach it with one hand, strug-
gling all the time with what seemed to be
Godfrey’s superhuman strength. Still I got
the vase in my hand, clasped its narrow
neck, pulled it around and shattered it on
Godfrey’s head.

His fingers loosened. For one second his
eyes held a startled expression, then he
slumped down to the floor.

From somewhere I heard a soft voice,
like the whisper of a sigh, "The score is
evened.”

I pulled myself together. Godfrey lay
crumpled on the floor. I couldn’t see any
sign of life. I got to the telephone, and
lifted off the instrument. Through my tor-
tured throat I somehow got out the words,
"Help! Help!” Then I fainted.

When I came to, Raoul was there and a
doctor. Evidently a guest of the hotel as
he had on a bathrobe over his pajamas. I
was in the bedroom. I tried to talk and
found I couldn’t make a sound, but I
mouthed the word, "Godfrey?”

"Madame, you must prepare yourself for
a shock. Your husband ... is dead. The
burglar who choked you, hit him on the
head with a vase when he came to your
rescue. A very gallant gentleman, your hus-
band. It is to be regretted that some
nothing of a sneak thief should be the
cause of terminating his life.”

It was a long, elegantly phrased speech,
tvoical of the French mind. The news

wasn’t a shock to me. I had known God-
frey was dead when I saw him crumpled
on the floor. Twice, while the doctor was
talking, I tried to break in to tell him that
he was wrong — there had been no burglar,
but I couldn’t speak. My throat seemed
paralyzed. Then, through my chaotic
thoughts came some common sense. The
truth was too incredible to be believed.
With a rush of panic I remembered the
tales I had heard of the French police and
their endless red tape. I decided it was
better to leave it as it was. They seemed
to have built up a good explanation of
events. What if they weren’t quite true. It
would be better that way. I would let it
go.

Raoul was saying, "We have had several
times trouble with sneak thieves already.
He had picked the lock of your suite. The
door was open.”

Needless to tell him that Godfrey never
locked doors. Everything was fitting in to
support their story.

The doctor was telling me a nurse was
coming to put cold compresses on my throat.

I was not to worry — they would attend to
all details. He also said he had given me
a hypodermic for the pain. I managed to _
indicate that I did not want to stay where
I was.

He looked bewildered, but Raoul under-
stood. "It is light, now, Madame.” He
pointed to the window and I could see the
first thin slivers of sunlight. Raoul went
on. "You will be quite all right, Madame,
and later in the day — long before it is dark
— I will see you are moved.”

It was with that assurance that I went
to sleep.

When I woke, I had been moved as
promised. Through tire days that followed
I didn’t let myself think. It wasn’t until
I was leaving to go back to England that 1
pinned him down.

"Raoul,” I said, "those rooms you gave
us that night — they are haunted.”

Shamefacedly he answered. “Y e s,
Madame. This hotel once was the home of
a French noble, a very great nobleman, who
managed to survive the Revolution because
of his friendship with Phillipe L’Egalite.
He maintained his power in the days of that
gory holocaust. That has always stained

THE MAN IN PURPLE

n

the white fingers of France. He was not a
nice man. There are rumors of the things
he did that I would not repeat to Madame.
He was responsible for many deaths. Those
rooms are in the oldest part of the building.
They were his. People have seen him . . .
dressed in purple. At first we tried to rent
the rooms, ignoring the ghost-talk as old
wives tales, but the guests complained. They
saw him, they said, and he was evil. They
felt the evil if they did not see it. One
woman who was very psychic, said she saw
him strangling someone. She was quite ill
afterwards. ..."

"Had he ever strangled anyone?” I broke

in.

"Yes, Madame. So I have heard. He
was proud of his strong hands. I once saw
a picture of a young Comtesse he was sup-
posed to have killed because she did not re-
turn his love. She looked rather like you,
Madame. We haven’t rented those rooms
for a long time. Did you see anything,
Madame, before the burglar came?”

So, we were to carry on 'with the burglar
to the bitter end. It was too late now to
do anything else when the authorities had
concurred with the 9tory so readily. "Yes,
Raoul. I saw — the man in purple,” I said
slowly.’’

T HE Man in Purple! Godfrey! Had they
been one and the same? Certainly the
Comtesse de Treves was myself. I hadn’t
needed Raoul’s talk of the resemblance to
the picture to know that. The Man in
Purple had killed her, but before she died

she had cursed him — had condemned him
tp wait for Jier until she evened the score.
Had that happened when I had, to save
myself, killed Godfrey? Had Godfrey been
the re-incarnation of the Man in Purple?
Had he used him to try to conquer me? —
The re-incarnation of the girl he had mur-
dered.

Had he in some strange way taken pos-
session of Godfrey’s body for his own un-
holy purposes? Was Godfrey the man I
loved?

Or was he the evil person whom I still
regarded with horror? Had fate brought
us to tlie rooms to work out destiny’s pat-
tern, or was it — ?. The questions were end-
less and they had been rotating in my mind
for days. Ever since the night Godfrey
died.

"It’s a strange thing, Madame,” Raoul
was saying, "the room is no longer haunted.
First the maid tells me she does not hear the
knocking any more. Then the floorman
tells me the same. So I spent a night there
myself, and there was — nothing! Absolutely
nothing. Not even a feeling of evil. This
last week I have rented the rooms and
there have been no complaints. Is it not
strange, Madame?”

"Yes, Raoul.” I couldn’t say more. I had
tlie answer to my questions now. Godfrey
had been the Man in Purple. I no longer
felt grief or guilt over his death. The
Comtesse de Treves had made good her
promise. She had evened the score. The
pendulum had swung wide and then gone
back into place. The cycle was complete.

Txe r

miling People

v v v v rv TTr ir yT ^ ■r ▼ ▼ w ▼ T .g

- 9

► Each sound had to be muffled for each sound was fear g!

► £

A A A -*• A ^ a xt.^, AAiLAAAA A AAA A A i>4|

I T WAS the sensation of silence that and swinging closed behind him was like
was the most notable aspect of the an opening and shutting dream, a thing ac-
house. As Mr. Greppin came through complished on rubber pads, bathed in lubri-
the front door the oiled silence of it opening cant, slow and unmaterialistic. The double

THE SMILING PEOPLE

53

carpet in the hall, which he himself had
so recently laid, gave off no sound from
his movements. And when the wind shook
the house late of nights there was not a rattle
of eave or tremor of loose sash. He had
himself checked the storm windows. The
screen doors were securely hooked with
bright new, firm hooks, and the furnace did
not knock but sent a silent whisper of warm
wind up the throats of the heating system
that sighed ever so quietly, moving the cuffs
of his trousers as he stood, now, warming
himself from the bitter afternoon.

Weighing the silence with the remark-
able instruments of pitch and balance in his
small ears, he nodded with satisfaction that
the silence was so unified and finished. Be-
cause there had been nights when rats had
walked between wall-layers and it had
taken baited traps and poisoned food before
the walls were mute. Even the grand-
father clock had been stilled, its brass pen-
dulum hung frozen and gleaming in its
long cedar, glass-fronted coffin.

They were waiting for him in the dining
room.

He listened. They made no sound. Good.
Excellent, in fact. They had learned, then,
to be silent. You had to teach people, but
it was worth while — there was not a rattle
of knife or fork from the dining table. He
worked off his thick grey gloves, hung up
his cold armor of overcoat and stood there
with an expression of urgency yet indecisive-
ness . . . thinking of what had to be done.

Mr. Greppin proceeded with familiar
certainty and economy of motion into the
dining room, where the four individuals
seated at the waiting table did not move
or speak a word. The only sound was the
merest allowable pad of his shoes on the
deep carpet.

His eyes, as usual, instinctively, fastened
’ upon the lady heading the table. Passing,
he waved a finger near her cheek. She did
not blink.

Aunt Rose sat firmly at the head of the
table and if a mote of dust floated lightly
down out of die ceiling spaces, did her eye
trace its orbit? Did the eye revolve in its
shellacked socket, with glassy cold precision?
And if the dust mote happened upon the
shell of her wet eye did the eye batten? Did
the muscles clinch, the lashes close?

No.

Aunt Rose’s hand lay on the table like
cutlery, rare and fine and old; tarnished.
Her bosom was hidden in a salad of fluffy
linen.

Beneath the table her stick legs in high-
buttoned shoes went up into a pipe of
dress. You felt that the legs terminated at
the skirt line and from there on she was a
department store dummy, all wax and noth-
ingness responding, probably, with much
the same chill waxen movements, with as
much enthusiasm and response as a manne-
quin.

So here was Aunt Rose, staring straight
at Greppin — he choked out a laugh and
clapped hands derisively shut — there were
the first hints of a dust mustache gathering
across her upper lip!

"Good evening, Aunt Rose,” he said,
bowing. "Good evening. Uncle Dimity,”
he said, -graciously. "No, not a word,” he
held up his hand. "Not a word from any
of you.” He bowed again. “Ah, good eve-
ning, cousin Lila, and you, cousin Sam.”

Lila sat upon his left, her hair like golden
shavings from a tube of lathed brass. Sanj,
opposite her, told all directions with hh
hair.

They were both young, he fourteen,
she sixteen. Uncle Dimity, their father
(but "father” was a nasty word!) sat next
to Lila, placed in this secondary niche long,
long ago because Aunt Rose said the win-
dow draft might get his neck if he sat at
the head of the table. Ah, Aunt Rose!

Mr. Greppin drew the chair under his
tight-clothed little rump and put a casual
elbow to the linen.

"I’ve something to say,” he said. "IT’s
very important. This has gone on for weeks
now. It can’t go any further. I’m in love.
Oh, but I’ve told you that long ago. On
the day I made you all smile, remember?”

T HE eyes of the four seated people did
not blink, the hands did not move.
Greppin became introspective. The day
he had made them smile. Two weeks ago
it was. He had come home, walked in,
looked at them and said, "I'm to be
married!”

They had all whirled with expressions
as if someone had just smashed the window.

54

WEIRD TALES

“You’re WHAT?” cried Aunt Rose.

“To Alice Jane Ballard!” he had said,
stiffening somewhat.

"Congratulations,” said Uncle Dimity. “I
guess,” he added, looking at his wife. He
cleared his throat. “But isn’t it a little
early, son?” He looked at his wife again.
“Yes. Yes, I think it’s a little early. I
wouldn’t advise it yet, not just yet, no.”

“The house is in a terrible way,” said
Aunt Rose. “We won’t have it fixed for a
year yet.”

“That’s what you said last year and the
year before,” said Mr. Greppin. “And any-
way,” he said bluntly, “this is my house.”

Aunt Rose’s jaw had clamped at that.
“After all these years for us to be bodily
thrown out, why I — ”

“You won’t be thrown out, don’t be
idiotic,” said Greppin, furiously.

"Now, Rose — ” said Uncle Dimity in a
pale tone.

Aunt Rose dropped her hands. “After
all I’ve done — ”

In that instant Greppin had known they
would have to go, all of them. First he
would make them silent, then he would
make them smile, then, later, he would
move them out like luggage. He couldn’t
bring Alice Jane into a house full of grims
such as these, where Aunt Rose followed
you wherever you went even when she
wasn’t following you, and the children
performed indignities upon you at a glance
from their maternal parent, and the father,
no better than a third child, carefully re-
arranged his advice to you on being a
bachelor. Greppin stared at them. It was
their fault that his loving and living was
all wrong. If he, did something about them
— then his warm bright dreams of soft
bodies glowing with an anxious perspiration
of love might become tangible and near.
Then he would have the house all to
himself and — and Alice Jane. Yes, Alice
Jane.

They would have to go. Quickly. If he
told them to go, as he had often done,
twenty years might pass as Aunt Rose
gathered sunbleached sachets and Edison
phonographs. Long before then Alice Jane
herself would be moved and gone.

Greppin looked at them as he picked up
the carving knife.

G REPPIN’S head snapped with tiredness.

He flicked his eyes open. Eh? Oh, he
had been drowsing, Blinking.

All that had occurred two weeks ago.
Two weeks ago this very night that conver-
sation about marriage, moving, Alice Jane,
had come about. Two weeks ago it had
been. Two weeks ago he had made them
smile.

Now, recovering from his reverie, he
smiled around at the silent and motionless
figures. They smiled back in peculiarly
pleasing fashion.

“I hate you, old woman,” he said to
Aunt Rose, directly. “Two weeks ago I
wouldn’t have dared say that. Tonight, ah,
well — ” he lazed his voice, turning. “Uncle
Dimity, let me give you a little advice, old
man — •”

He talked small talk, picked up a spoon,
pretended to eat peaches from an empty
dish. He had already eaten downtown in a
tray cafeteria; pork, potatoes, apple pie,
string beans, beets, potato salad. But now
he made dessert eating motions because he
enjoyed this little act. He made as if he
were chewing.

“So — tonight you are finally, once and
for all, moving out. I’ve waited two weeks,
thinking it all over. In a way I guess I’ve
kept you here this long because I wanted to
keep an eye on you. Once you’re gone, I
can’t be sure — ” And here his eyes gleamed
with fear. “You might come prowling
around, making noises at night, and I
couldn’t stand that. I can't ever have noises
in this house, not even when Alice moves
in. . .

The double carpet was thick and sound-
less underfoot, reassuring.

“Alice wants to move in day after tomor-
row. We’re getting married."

Aunt Rose winked evilly, doubtfully at
him.

“Ah!” he cried, leaping up, then, star-
ing, he sank down, mouth convulsing.^ He
released the tension in him, laughing. “Oh,
I see. It was a fly.” He watched the fly
crawl with slow precision on the ivory cheek
of Aunt Rose and dart away. Why did it
have to pick that instant to make her eye
appear to blink, to doubt. “Do you doubt
I ever will marry, Aunt Rose? Do you
think me incapable of marriage, of love

THE SMILING PEOPLE

and love’s duties? Do you think me imma-
ture, unable to cope with a woman and her
ways of living? Do you think me a child,
only daydreaming? Well!” He calmed
himself with an effort, shaking his head.
"Man, man,” he argued to himself. "It was
only a fly, and does a fly make doubt of
love, or did you make it into a fly and a
wink? Damn it!” He pointed at the four
of them.

"I’m going to fix the furnace hotter. In
an hour I’ll be moving you out of the house
once and for all. You comprehend? Good.
I see you do.”

Outside, it was beginning to rain, a cold
drizzling downpour that drenched the
house. A look of irritation came to Grep-
pin’s face. The sound of the rain was the
one thing he couldn’t stop, couldn't be
helped. No way to buy new hinges or lubri-
cants or hooks for that. You might tent the
housetop with lengths of cloth to soften
the sound, mightn’t you? That’s going a
bit far. No. No way of preventing the
rain sounds.

He wanted silence now, where he had
never wanted it before in his life so much.
Each sound was a fear. So each sound had
to be muffled, gotten to and eliminated.

The drum of rain was like the knuckles
of an impatient man on a surface. He lapsed
again into remembering.

He remembered the rest of it. The rest
of that hour on that day two weeks ago
when he had made them smile. . . .

He had taken up the carving knife and
prepared to cut the bird upon the table. As
usual the family had been gathered, all
wearing their solemn, puritanical masks. If
the children smiled the smiles were stepped
on Like nasty bugs by Aunt Rose.

Aunt Rose criticized the angle of Grep-
pin’s elbows as he cut the bird. The knife,
she made him understand also, was not
sharp enough. Oh, yes, the sharpness of
the knife. At this point in his memory he
stopped, rolled-tilted his eyes, and laughed.
Dutifully, then, he had crisped the knife on
the sharpening rod and again set upon the
fowl.

He had severed away much of it in
some minutes before he slowly looked up
at their solemn, critical faces, like puddings
with agate eyes, and after staring at them

55

a moment, as if discovered with a mked
woman instead of a naked-limbed partridge,
he lifted the knife and cried hoarsely, "Why
in God’s name can’t you, any of you, ever
smile? I’ll make you smile!”

He raised the knife a number of times
like a magician’s wand.

And, in a short interval — behold! they
were all of them smiling!

H E BROKE that memory in half,
crumpled it, balled it, tossed it down.
Rising briskly, he went to the hall, down
the hall to the kitchen, and from there
down the dim stairs into the cellar where
he opened the furnace door and built the
fire steadily and expertly into wonderful
flame.

Walking upstairs again he looked about
him. He would have cleaners come and
clean the empty house, redecorators slide
down the dull drapes and hoist new shim-
mery banners up. New thick Oriental rugs
purchased for the floors would subtly insure
the silence he desired and would need at
least for the next month, if not for the
entire year.

He put his hands to his face. What if
Alice Jane made noise moving about the
house? Some noise, some how, some place!

And then he laughed. It was quite a
joke. That problem was already solved.
Yes, it was solved. He need fear no noise
from Alice Jane. It was all absurdly simple.
He would have all the pleasure of Alice
Jane and none of the dream-destroying dis-
tractions and discomforts.

There was one other addition needed to
the quality of silence. Upon the tops of
the doors that the wind sucked shut with
a bang at frequent intervals he would in-
stall air-compression brakes, those kind they
have on library doors that hiss gently as
their levers seal.

He passed through the dining room. The
figures had not moved from their tableau.
Their hands remained affixed in familiar
positions, and their indifference to him was
not impoliteness.

He climbed the hall stairs to change his
clothing, preparatory to the task of moving
the family. Taking the links from his fine
cuffs, he swung his head to one side. Music.
At first he paid it no mind. Then, slowly,

56

WEIRD TALES

his face swinging to the ceiling, the color
drained out of his cheeks.

At the very apex of the house the music
began, note by note, one note following
another, and it terrified him.

Each note came like a plucking of one
single harp thread. In the complete silence
the small sound of it was made larger until
it grew all out of proportion to itself, gone
mad with all this soundlessness to stretch
about in.

The door opened in an explosion from
his hands, the next thing his feet were try-
ing the stairs to the third level of the house,
the bannister twisted in a long polished
snake under his tightening, relaxing, reach-
ing-up, pulling-hands! The steps went
under to be replaced by longer, higher,
darker steps. He had started the game at
the bottom with a slow stumbling, now he
was running with full impetus and if a wall
had suddenly confronted him he would not
have stopped for it until he saw blood on it
and fingernail scratches where he tried to
pass through.

He felt like a mouse running in a great
clear space of a bell. And high in the bell
sphere the one harp thread hummed. It
drew him on, caught him up with an
unbilical of sound, gave his fear sustenance
and life, mothered him. Fears passed be-
tween mother and groping child. He
sought to shear the connection with his
hands, could not. He felt as if someone had
given a heave on the cord, wriggling.

Another clear threaded tone. And
another.

"No, keep quiet,” he shouted. “There
can’t be noise in my house. Not since two
weeks ago. I said there would be no more
noise. So it can’t be — it’s impossible! Keep
quiet!"

He burst upward into the attic.

Relief can be hysteria.

Teardrops fell from a vent in the roof
and struck, shattering upon a tall neck of
Swedish cut-glass flowerware with resonant
tone.

He shattered the vase with one swift
move of his triumphant foot!

P ICKING out and putting on an old
shirt and old pair of pants in his room,
he chuckled. The music was gone, the vent

plugged, the silence again insured. There
are silences and silences. Each with its
own identity. There were summer night
silences, whidi weren’t silences at all, but
layer on layer of insect chorals and the
sound of electric arc lamps swaying in lonely
small orbits on lonely country roads, cast-
ing out feeble rings of illumination upon
which the night fed — summer night
silence which, to be a silence, demanded
an indolence and a neglect and an indiffer-
ence upon the part of the listener. Not a
silence at all! And there was a winter
silence, but- it was an incoffined silence,
ready to burst out at the first touch of
spring, tilings had a compression, a not-for-
long feel, the silence made a sound unto
itself, the freezing was so complete it made
chimes of everything or detonations of a
single breath or word you spoke at mid-
night in the diamond air. No, it was not a
silence worthy of the name. A silence be-
tween two lovers, when diere need be no
words. Color came in his cheeks, he shut
his eyes. It was a most pleasant silence, a
perfect silence with Alice Jane. He had
seen to that. Everything was perfect.

Whispering.

He hoped the neighbors hadn’t heard him
shrieking like a fool.

A faint whispering.

Now, about silences. The best silence
was one conceived in every aspect by an
individual, himself, so that there could be
no bursting of crystal bonds, or electric-
insect hummings, die human mind could
cope with each sound, each emergency, until
such a complete silence was achieved that
one could hear ones cells adjust in ones
hand.

A whispering.

He shook his head. There was no whis-
pering. There could be none in his house.
Sweat began to seep down his body, he
began to shake in small, imperceptible
shakings, his jaw loosened, his eyes were
turned free in their sockets.

Whisperings. Low rumors of talk.

"I tell you I’m getting married,” he said,
weakly, loosely.

"You're lying,” said the whispers.

His head fell forward on its neck as if
hung, chin on chest.

"Her name is Alice Jane Ballard — ” he

THE SMILING PEOPIE

57

mouthed it between soft, wet lips and the
words were formless. One of his eyes be-
gan to jitter its lid up and down as if
blinking out a message to some unseen
guest. "You can’t stop me from loving her,
I love her — ”

Whispering.

He took a blind step forward.

The cuff of his pants leg quivered as he
reached the floor grille of the ventilator. A
hot rise of air followed his cuffs. Whispering.
The furnace.

H E WAS on his way downstairs when
someone knocked on the front door.
He leaned against it. "Who is it?”

"Mr. Greppin?”

Greppin drew in his breath. "Yes?”
"Will you let us in, please?”

"Well, who is it?”

"The police,” said the man outside.
"What do you want, I’m just sitting
down to supper!”

"Just want a talk with you. The neigh-
bors phoned. Said they hadn’t seen your
Aunt and Uncle for two weeks. Heard a
noise awhile ago — ”

"1 assure you everything is all right.” He
forced a laugh.

"Well, then,” continued the voice out-
side, "we can talk it over in friendly style
if you’ll only open the door.”

"I’m sorry,” insisted Greppin. "I’m
tired and hungry, come back tomorrow. I’ll
talk to you then, if you want me to.”

"I’ll have to insist, Mr. Greppin.”

They began to beat against the door.
Greppin turned automatically, stiffly,
walked down the hall past the old clock,
into the dining room, without a word. He
seated himself without looking at any one
in particular and then he began to talk,
slowly at first, then more rapidly.

"Some pests at the door. You’ll talk to
them, won’t you, Aunt Rose? You’ll tell
them to go away, won’t you, we’re eating
dinner? Everyone else go on eating and
look pleasant and they’ll go away, if they
do come in. Aunt Rose you will talk to
them, won’t you? And now that things are
happening I have something to tell you.”
A few hot tears fell for no reason. He
looked at them as they soaked and spread
in the white linen, vanishing. "I don’t
know any one named Alice Jane Ballard.
1 never knew any one named Alice Jane
Ballard. It was all — all — I don’t know. I
said I loved her and wanted to marry her
to get around somehow to make you smile.
Yes, I said it because I planned to make
you smile, that was the only reason. I’m
never going to have a woman, I always
knew for years I never would have. Will
you please pass the potatoes, Aunt Rose?”

T HE front door splintered and fell. A
heavy softened rushing filled the hall.
Men broke into the dining room.

A hesitation.

The police inspector hastily removed his
hat.

"Oh, I beg your pardon,” he apologized.
"I didn’t mean to intrude upon your supper,

I—”

The sudden halting of die police was
such that their movement shook the room.
The movement catapulted the bodies of
Aunt Rose and Uncle Dimity straight away
to the carpet, where they lay, their throats
severed in a half moon from ear to ear —
which caused them, like the children seated
at the table, to have what was die horrid
illusion of a smile under their chins, ragged
smiles that welcomed in die late arrivals and
told them everything with a simple
grimace. . . .

nee There Was

an Elephant

B lack diamond, the six-ton bull

elephant, pride of Haley’s London
and New York Circus, was sick. The
afternoon show had gone on without the
royal presence for the first time since anyone

could remember and now he stood swaying
and weaving in his place in the elephant
tent, eyes closed, knees sagging and trunk
hanging lifelessly.

If he had not been sick, Black Diamond

Heading by FRED HUMISTON

58

ONCE THERE WAS AN ELEPHANT

59

would have resented the presence of Linda
O’Dell, diminutive pad and bareback rider
who stood nearby, the top of her red head
barely reaching to his tusks. She was steady-
ing the stepladder for the circus vet while
the latter made a gingerly examination of
the elephant’s rubbery eyes, and under ordi-
nary circumstances the ill-natured pachy-
derm would have sent her scurrying away
with lashing trunk, and blown dirt after her
to boot.

Black Diamond was an African, and like
most of his kind, of dumb and unfriendly
temperament. But toward Linda he enter-
tained a particular aversion. In his confused
brain he sensed her as a rival for the affec-
tions of Otto, his keeper and his idol, and he
was fiercely jealous. If he had dared, he
would have killed her before now.

As for Linda, she had no love for Black
Diamond — in fact, quite the reverse. She
wanted to marry Otto and take him off to the
dilapidated farm in Vermont with die huge
maples on either side of the broken-down
front porch, her paternal heritage and only
property. It was her dream to leave the cir-
cus, no longer appreciative of her bareback
somersaults, and go farming with the big,
hulking elephant man, who would make an
excellent hand with livestock. But Black
Diamond stood in her way, as surely as
though his towering bulk were chained be-
tween the two maples, denying her passage
to her own property.

Nevertheless, now that the elephant was
sick, Linda was- worried, and for reasons
strictly personal to herself. So, too, was Sam
Harris, the veterinarian, as he climbed down
the stepladder. He had on the black derby
which he customarily wore when profession-
ally engaged and his black bow tie was
askew in his celluloid collar.

Sam had seen a cross-eyed towner at the
afternoon show and though he had made his
fingers into a V and spat between them he
had been expecting baa luck ever since. He
pushed back the derby and mopped his red
face with a dirty handkerchief, eyeing the
elephant keeper resentfully.

"Your elephant’s got pink eye," he said to
Otto. "Elephants ain’t supposed to get pink
eye but he’s got it."

He climbed back up the ladder with a bot-
tle and a cotton swab.

Otto was shuffling aimlessly about his
charge, rumbling and mumbling in elephant
language, as he tried to bring the animal's
trunk alive with a pail of hot mash and salt.
Linda’s eyes were tender as they followed
him. But there was deep trouble in them,
too. For Otto had gotten to look like an ele-
phant, and there was no use denying it. Of
course, he was older now, and that might ac-
count for his stoop and his shuffling walk.
But his nose had grown thicker and longer,
his ears larger and of an unmistakable pro-
tuberancy. Of late Linda had noticed with
horror that they seemed to be curving over
and downward at the top. Even his eyes,
once so bold and frank, were growing shifty
and small, and he talked in a guttural rum-
ble. Strange things happen when a man anti
a beast live together by day and by night for
a decade.

T HERE had been other things, too — that
limp, for instance. It affected everybody
when Black Diamond came down with a
limp, because the circus parade takes its pace
from the elephants and the elephants take
their pace from the king elephant, which
was Black Diamond. It had slowed every-
thing up and the show was late in starting
that day. But the thing of it was that Otto
came down with the same limp and on the
same side. There was a shaking of heads
and furtive whisperings among the troopers,
who are the most superstitious people in the
world. All except down clown alley, where
anything unusual is turned to good account.

Chilly Billy and Poodles put on an act
which brought down the house — the lame
elephant and the lame keeper — and bade
fair to be a great success. That is, until Linda
saw it. Linda had a temperament which
went well with her red hair and when her
act was over she rode right into clown alley
on her white stallion, her small face pale
with anger. The two clowns were folding
up their fake elephant skin as the stallion
reared up and struck down at them with
sharp knives. By fast footwork they got
away unhurt and Linda and the horse fin-
ished with the elephant skin. After that, the
act was never repeated, though whenever
there was a spell of bad weather Black Dia-
mond and his keeper would limp together.
These things may have been just coinci-

60

WEIRD TALES

dence, of course, but Sam Harris, full of
superstitious fancies, thought otherwise. If
Otto was going to be a Siamese twin with
his elephant, he, Sam, wanted as little as
possible to do with either of them. His pro-
fessional duty done, he hastily made off to-
ward the animal cages, Linda trailing along.
When they were out of earshot, she tugged
at his sleeve.

"You don’t suppose, now,” she said,
''that Otto’ll be getting that pink eye, do
you, Sam?”

"Hell, Linda,” said the vet, "no man
catches animal’s diseases.” Then he added
uneasily, "Leastways they ain’t supposed
to.”

He moved off, anxious to be rid of her,
but Linda tagged after him.

"It isn’t a case of catching something,”
she said. "You know how it is with Otto
and that elephant. You might almost say
that Otto is that elephant. I don’t want Otto
to get pink eye. It’ll look funny to the cir-
cus. You got to do something, Sam.”

"I done all I could, Linda,” he said, "and
3 seen a cross-eyed man today. Like as not
I’ll get an arm clawed off by one of them
striped cats. I don’t want to hear no more
about them onnatural things.”

As Linda walked back past the elephant
line, Otto came shuffling out to meet her.

"He won’t eat, Linda, and he won’t drink.
I don’t know what to do.”

He was standing feet apart, his ponderous
body weaving from side to side in cadence,
it seemed to Linda, with the sick elephant.
Suddenly impatient, she snapped at him:

"Get a hot water bottle and hold it on his
stomach all night, you big hunkie.” Then
seeing the hurt look in his eyes, she added,
"Unless, by any chance, you might like to
take Linda into town tonight after the
show?”

Otto looked at her reprovingly.

"Black Diamond might need me to-
night,” he rumbled. "He might need me
bad.”

She pushed by him and as she passed
Black Diamond she spat venomously in the
direction of the towering rump.

"Damn rubber cow,” she fumed.

• # • • #

It had always been like that. Ever since
she had first set eyes on Otto ten years

ago as he came walking down the midway,
big and cocky and confident, his eyes bold
and shiny as he led in the runaway ele-
phant, tame now as a kitten. Black Diamond
had gone on a rampage at his first street pa-
rade, panicked by a baby carriage. In his
wild flight, he had knocked over trees and
hydrants, wrecked a horse car and put to
rout the local fire department, sent out to
capture him. Undoubtedly he would have
been shot had not Otto, appearing out of
nowhere, calmed him down, and led him in
without aid of elephant hook or hood.

It was a case of love at first sight, a not
uncommon thing among elephants, and the
circus, recognizing this, had hired Otto on
the spot as the intractable animal’s keeper.
It was something like that for Linda, too,
though she did not admit this, being married
at the time. But when, a few years later, her
acrobat husband fell to violent death, she at
once set her cap for the elephant man, whose
ungainly bulk and childlike ways both fas-
cinated her and aroused her strongly mater-
nal instincts.

Linda was as determined as she was pretty
and there would have been no trouble about
the matter except for Black Diamond. He
was a one-man elephant and would obey
Otto implicitly, but he would have killed
anyone else that tried to command him.
Jealous and demanding, he would share
Otto with no one. Once when the keeper
had fed peanuts to another elephant, Black
Diamond had seized him with his trunk
and held him on high, and Otto was the
closest he had ever been to d^ith at that mo-
ment. The bull had set him down gently,
however, chirruping his apologies and ca-
ressing him wita the sensitive finger and
thumb of his trunk, but never again did
Otto dare show attention to any living crea-
ture within sight of his charge’s shifty eyes.

The towering elephant was the circus’
premier attraction, so Otto became through
force of circumstances a vital and important
member of the troupe. But between the de-
manding elephant and the purposeful girl,
he was as helpless and bewildered as a puppy
being fought over by two children. ^

C IRCUS people sleep late and it was the
middle of the following morning when
Linda arrived at the big dining tent for her

ONCE THERE WAS AN ELEPHANT

61

coffee. She took her place at the long table
opposite Chilly Billy and Poodles, who were
looking a bit seedy after a night’s tour of the
hot spots offered by the thriving Western
town. News spreads fast in the circus and
the two clowns knew all about Black Dia-
mond.

"When an elephant gets sick he gets sick
all over," Poodles was saying. He looked
sideways at his tall and skinny companion
and winked out of bloodshot eyes, his wide
clown’s mouth spreading in a grin which
showed the handsome gold fillings. "I
wouldn’t wonder but what Black Diamond
would turn into a pink elephant.”

"Better ’n Barnum’s white elephant,” said
Chilly. He was fond of Linda but he liked
to see her bridle up. "Now supposin’ we
had a pink elephant in the circus, Red, and
you was to ride him in the parade — ”

“It wouldn’t be the first one you two
saw,” Linda snapped, and there was a gen-
eral guffaw down the table. The two
friendly clowns were the circus’ fast com-
pany.

Someone came through the door and
stumbled over a tent pin. Poodles was glad
of the diversion and helped the man up.

“Ain’t you going to say good morning to
me and the lady,” said Chilly. "We were
just talking about your elephant — ”

He stopped suddenly and cxdianged
glances with Linda, who was rubbirfg the
palms of her hands with a tiny handker-
chief, a habit acquired from many hot sum-
mers in the ring.

"I don’t think he can see us, Chilly,” she
said in a low voice. “Look at his eyes.”

But Otto’s eyes couldn’t be seen except
for a red slit showing between swollen lids.
He slumped down clumsily at the table op-
posite the girl.

"I’ll get you some' breakfast, Otto honey,”
she said.

He looked up at the voice and rumbled
crossly, “Don’t want a thing to eat. Just
-cupacoffee. Got to get over to elephant
quarters.”

Linda motioned Chilly outside. The un-
gainly clown was serious now and all solici-
tude. He knew what had happened all right
and he was with Linda on it. They had been
troopers together for years.

“You get him to the doctor quick,

Chilly,” she said. “Before people see him.
Then get him to bed. I’ve got other busi-
ness.”

"Count on me, Red,” he replied, and
ducking his head went back through the tent
door.

An unwilling vet found himself being
dragged away from the cozy medicine tent
where he was enjoying his morning cigar
and propelled by the determined little red-
head to the elephant quarters. Black Dia-
mond was worse. He was lying down now,
his two short hind legs bent like knees and
doubled behind him, his body trembling
with fever and his eyes so puffed up that
Sam could barely pry them open. And he
didn’t like what he saw within.

“He’s a sick elephant all right,” said the
vet. "Looks like the infection got in the eye
structure. I’ll give him a shot of bacterin,
but I dunno.”

Panic came to Linda but it didn’t show.
Only the small handkerchief was working
the inside of her hands and it was real sweat
now.

"Suppose it doesn’t get better,” she said.
"Suppose it gets worse. What’ll happen to
Ott — to Black Diamond then?”

T HE vet was thinking the same thing. He
was trying to cover it up and he wasn’t
good at it. He fumbled in his pocket for a
plug and finally got it out and wrenched off
a mouthful.

“This here bacterin ought to help,” he
said, kneeling down beside his satchel.

"You answer my question, Sam Harris,”
said Linda, stamping her foot. "You tell me
the truth. If you don't, I'll put a hex on you
and your animals and don’t think I don’t
know how.”

The color drained out of the vet’s face
and his lower jaw sagged.

“I’ll tell you all I know, Linda,” he
quavered. "But don’t you start nothing on
an old friend like me.” He took out his
medicines with trembling hands. “The truth
is the elephant can’t see. He ain’t blind yet
but he will be in another twelve hours if this
bacterin don’t take hold."

“Suppose he does go blind,” said Linda,
“’ll they kill him!”

"Have to,” said Sam.

Black Diamond never winced as the vet

62

WEIRD TALES

jabbed the needle three inches into his hide.
Linda forced her voice to be conversational.

"How do they go about killing a great
hulk like an elephant?” she asked, resting a
dainty foot on the bulging side.

Now that the talk had turned profes-
sional, Sam was getting back his composure.

"Well, sometimes they make a double
slip noose around their neck with a rope and
have two good elephants pull them tight.
Sometimes they shoot them, but it takes a lot
of shooting. Or an orange or apple with
poison in it — cyanide of potassium — will
finish them off quiet like. Even a sick ele-
phant will eat an orange.”

Linda was thinking hard. She was work-
ing hard at her hands with her ball of a
handkerchief.

"That cross-eyed towner, Sam, did he
look like this?”

She contorted her mouth and screwed up
her eyes into a frightful imitation of a cross-
eyed redhead. The superstitious vet backed
away in horror.

"For God's sake, Linda,” he said. "For
God's sake.”

He spat through his fingers.

"Spitting won’t do you any good, Sam.
But I’ll cross it out for you if you’ll do what
I say. The bad luck is in that elephant, Sam.
It’s spreading to Otto and it’ll spread to you
and me if we don’t do something quick.”

She came close to him and spoke in a low
voice. The vet shook his head and made off
in long strides. Then he started to run.
Linda followed, her delicate face formidable
and grim with unladylike determination.

T OSSING in her bed in the circus sleep-
ing car that night, Linda dreamed of her
farm in Vermont and of Otto and of ele-
phants. Otto had Black Diamond hitched to
the plow and they were wallowing through
a muddy field. Linda was following along
trying to give the elephant an orange but she
could never quite catch up to him because
her feet were stuck in the mud. Otto was
whipping the elephant and shouting to him
to go faster. Then the shouts changed to
screams and groans and suddenly she was
•awake and the screams and groans were real
and coming along the platform just outside
her car.

As she tumbled out of the train in dress-

ing gown and red slippers, a stretcher was
being hoisted into the hospital car. Crowd-
ing around it, in various states of undress,
was a curious and sympathetic crowd of cir-
cus men and women, getting in each other's
way in their desire to help. The tall form of
Chilly Billy was waving them away from the
car and he was shooting profane orders to
get the hell out of here and go back to bed.
Then Linda was standing beside the table
on which Otto now lay writhing.

His skin was blue and he was doubled up
with pain and rolling from side to side.
Nevertheless he recognized Linda and in a
thick guttural whisper he gasped,

"Black Diamond — get — Sam — quick.”

The circus doctor, a tall cadaverous man
with a black handlebar mustache, dressed
only in a long white nightgown, shook his
head.

"Off his bean,” he said. He pried open
Otto’s mouth and viewed the purple swollen
tongue.

“Must have et something bad. I’d say
he’d took poison, only how would he get
the stuff?”

He looked at Linda lugubriously.

"He’s likely to die. Right here in this car.
And we haven’t got any proper arrange-
ments for corpses. If you was to step out,
lady, we might have a try at the stomach
pump.”

Chilly Billy was looking hard at Linda.
Now he spoke to the doctor.

"He hasn’t had any poison and he hasn’t
eaten anything bad. He hasn’t eaten at all.
He’s been right in my bunk all day. He’ll
live all right — if the elephant lives.”

He turned to Linda.

“You know what I mean, Red. Now you
get going.”

Linda got going. Her wiry form knocked
the galaxy of freaks, clowns, acrobats and
hangers on right and left as she catapulted
out of the train and down the railroad siding.

Over at the elephant tent a sleepy and
protesting vet, arrayed in a dirty dressing
gown of faded colors and a black derby,
driven by the lashing energy of a small red-
headed dynamo, administered to a very sick
elephant. Black Diamond lay on his side
now, groaning in pain, and the other ele-
phants were wide awake and loudly trum-
peting their concern for him.

ONCE THERE WAS AN ELEPHANT

63

"There’s no more cyanide left in him,”
said Sam finally. "His heart is beating like a
bass drum and he’ll probably live another
sixty years.”

He looked at Linda sourly.

"That is, if you leave him be.”

Even as he spoke Black Diamond’s groans
changed to thunderous snores. The whole
herd quieted and trunks curled up, as one
by one the elephants went to sleep.

"They know,” said Sam. "It beats hell
but they know all about it. They know that
Black Diamond is all right now. Like as not
they know what was the matter with him,
and who done it. You better get out of here
and stay out.”

As Linda scurried past the hospital car on
her way back the loud snoring that issued
therefrom told her all she wanted to know.

"Might as well marry the elephant and
be done with it,” she said wearily as she
climbed into bed. "Maybe I'm a sucker I
didn’t let the both of them die.”

The harassed veterinarian was packing up
his medicines and instruments next morning
when the unwelcome Linda invaded the pri-
vacy of his tent to inquire about Black Dia-
mond.

"Damned if he ain’t well,” said Sam.
Linda noticed he had on a clean celluloid
collar, a ceremony usually reserved for Sun-
day. "Eating hay by the hundred pound.
Eyes all right, too. Looks like cyanide was
just what he needed for pink eye.”

"I knew it would be so,” said Linda. "I
saw Otto this morning. His pink eye’s gone,
too.”

Sam crossed himself.

"You suppose them two,” he whispered
hoarsely, "is transfiguratin’ each other or
something? Maybe, now, this here Black
Diamond is really Otto and the elephant is
sleeping back there in the hospital car.”

Linda stamped a small foot.

"You old fool,” she said, eyes blazing,
"Don’t you go starting any such rumors
around here. If you do, I’ll tell everyone you
poisoned Black Diamond. Now you keep
your mouth shut.”

But Sam didn’t need any urging.

"I ain’t saying a word, Linda. I’m getting
out of here. I’m going to the treasury wagon
and I’m leaving the circus for good. You
just forget about old Sam Harris.”

The vet gathered up his suitcase and
stowed several paper parcels in his pockets.

"Just you keep that elephant well, Linda,”
he said, edging around her and out the open-
ing of his tent. "Maybe, you take good care
of him he’ll live to be a hundred and Otto
will too.”

# * * * #

B UT Black Diamond didn’t live to be a
hundred. As the morning wore on he
began to miss his keeper, now closely con-
fined to bed by the strong-willed Linda. A
cage boy came by with a pail of mash and
the elephant knocked it out of his hands
with a powerful blow of his trunk. The boy
backed away with uncomplimentary remarks
and Black Diamond crushed the pail with a
tap of his forefoot and gobbled up the mess
from the floor. Rapidly gaining in strength
and irascibility, he strained from time to
time against his picket stake, flailed his
neighbors with his trunk and soon had the
whole elephant line in a state of nerves. A
variation of trumpeting, squalling, gusting
of breath, whines and rumbles emanated
from the whole herd, with Black Diamond
leading the diorus.

In his bunk in the hospital car Otto was
likewise behaving badly. Linda came in with
a bowl of hot broth which he clumsily
knocked from her hands. Then, without
apology, he turned his back on her and faced
the wall. When Linda sat on the edge of
the bunk and patted his shoulder he only
rumbled and moved closer to the wall. The
girl’s mood swiftly changing from solicitude
to anger, she stuck out her tongue at the
sulky form and left, curtly instructing
Sambo, the colored porter, to clean up the
mess on the floor and take good care that

Otto did not get up.

#■**.«#

I T WAS shortly before the afternoon per-
formance, when die early customers were
starting to drift into the sideshows, that it
happened. Linda was in the horse tent rub-
bing down her white stallion when the cry
came.

"Elephant loose!”

Then everybody was running.

An ominous black form, bellowing and
screaming, was tearing across the tent-spat-
tered field with the speed and undeviatingj
course of a locomotive. It mowed down 3

64

WEIRD TALES

cook tent that stood in its way, leaving a
tangle of ropes and burning canvas, en-
gulfed a sideshow barker in the wreckage
of his platform trappings and sent the
frightened towners scurrying and diving for
cover as it crossed the midway. Narrowly
missing a group of children gathered about
a gas balloon hawker on the outskirts of the
circus proper, the flailing trunk caught the
hawker in midriff .and hurled him twenty
feet through the air. But the colored bal-
loons, festooned about the elephant’s head,
went with him on his wild flight, their oc-
casional explosions adding to his panic and
his rage.

Out of nowhere appeared all manner of
circus people — tent men, cage boys, animal
trainers, riders and clowns, armed with
whatever came handy, from pitchforks to
brooms, in aimless pursuit of the runaway.
As they disappeared from the lot, there was
a moment of silence and stillness and the
circus grounds appeared to be deserted.
Then the barkers mounted their platforms,
the concessionaires resumed their staccato
cries, the midway became populous with
towners emerging from their places of ref-
uge, and the circus was itself again.

Someone cranked up the circus Ford and
Linda ran toward it, thinking to join in the
chase. Then the awful thought struck her.
Abruptly she turned back to the horse tent,
bridled her white stallion, and raced bare-
back across the lot in the direction of Otto
and the circus train.

But it was too late. Even as she clattered
down the wooden siding she knew it was
too late. Draped on the steps of the hospital
car, one foot caught in the railing and body
sprawled head downward, his morning cigar
still in his mouth but crushed against his
face, was a frightened and stunned Negro, a
huge and growing egg on his forehead. All
he could do was point, as he struggled to get
free, in the direction that Otto had gone.

# * # * *

A RAMPAGING elephant never goes
around anything. He goes through
whatever gets in his way. Black Dia-
mond, leaving behind him a wide arc of de-
struction through the center of town, had
come to grief in the freight yard. Two
tracks, crowded with cars loaded with ore,
met in a V, and where they came together

there was a small aperture. Into this triangle
charged Black Diamond and, sensing the
point of weakness, hurled himself at it.
There was a crashing sound of metal on
metal and grinding wheels. The heavy cars
quivered and opened enough to let in the
battering head. Then they closed upon it
like a vice. Black Diamond was caught like
a gigantic mouse in a trap.

A crowd of townspeople and circus folk
with their futile weapons started to gather at
a respectful distance to his rear. Black Dia-
mond, trumpeting, bellowing and squalling,
was engaged in a titanic effort to pull him-
self free.

Rump almost touching the ground, his
six-ton body heaved and hauled backward
on the leverage of his short and powerful
legs. But he was weak from his sickness
and his run and the iron vice held fast.

Two men armed with rifles came running.
They were in shirt sleeves and suspenders
and one wore a glittering sheriff’s badge.

"Right behind the shoulder, Jake,”
shouted the sheriff, breathing heavily. “You
take one side and I’ll take t’other.”

They advanced cautiously on either side
of the elephant, keeping close to the cover of
the cars. The sheriff knelt to take aim. Then
the lightning struck. A white horse with
screaming rider clattered into the triangle at
runaway speed. The spectators scattered
like chaff and the horse bore down with
deadly directness on the kneeling man.
Dropping his rifle, he rolled under the
freight car with a frightened "Jesus!” just
in time to escape the devastating hoofs. The
horse whirled and reared with the agility of
a polo pony; then smashed down on the
abandoned rifle, battering it into match-
wood.

On the other side of the elephant, the
sheriff’s deputy, unaware of his chief’s dis-
comfiture, took deliberate aim and fired. It
was a lucky shot and the heavy Springfield
bullet pierced the elephant’s heart. For a
moment he quivered and then, every nerve
and muscle relaxing, his head slipped free
of the deadly apex and he sat bade on his
haunches in a puzzled way. A colored bal-
loon, miraculously preserved, bobbed in-
congruously about the great head. Then the
mountainous form 'rolled gently over on its
side, one front foot pointing skyward, the

ONCE THERE WAS AN ELEPHANT

65 ,

trunk curled and uncurled once and Black
Diamond moved no more.

The circus people rushed forward to pull
Linda away from the dead elephant. Her
disheveled red hair streaming over her tear-
streaked face, she was sobbing and stroking
the blue-black head. Above her stood the
tall white stallion, his neck stretched down
until his muzzle touched her as if to share in
her grief. It was a tableau worthy of the
circus, had the spectators been there to see.

"They’ve killed Otto. Oh, they’ve killed
my Otto,” she wailed.

But she came away with her friends be-
cause Linda was a trouper, and the show had
to go on.

T HE show went on, but it was not the
same. The performers went through
their acts mechanically, without the dash and
verve they usually displayed when there was
a crowded tent. Everyone was afraid of
where the jinx might strike next, for that
there was a jinx abroad no one doubted.
Otto was at the bottom of it. Otto and Black
Diamond. The elephant had pink eye, Otto
had pink eye. The elephant was poisoned,
Otto was poisoned. Then they both miracu-
lously recovered. Now the elephant had
gone on a rampage and had been killed and
Otto was missing.

It was well known that jinxes go by
threes, buf here was a sort of doubleheaded
jinx and there was no precedent for it. Until
Otto or his body appeared no one knew
what might happen.

But Linda knew. She could tell to the
minute when Otto had been killed. He had
been shot, of course, the moment the bullet
had entered Black Diamond’s heart. Some-
where his great hulking body was lying in an
alley, bathed in his heart’s blood.

Well, there was one thing they would not
do to him. They would not skin him and
stuff him and put him in a museum as they
were undoubtedly starting to do at this mo-
ment with Black Diamond. Linda would see
to that. She would go out and find Otto and
take his body to her farm in Vermont and
bury it under one of the great maple trees.
Her determined little chin quivered. It
would be hard to leave the circus, but it had
nothing left for her now.

She was walking down the almost de-

serted midway with Chilly Billy, whose face
was still streaked with the remnants of its
gaudy clown’s coloring. It was here, a dec-
ade ago, that she had first seen Otto as he
triumphantly brought in the great wild ele-
phant. Chilly Billy had been with her then
and she was glad now of his faithful com-
pany in her time of grief.

The circus band struck up its last tune. It
was always the same one — "Tenting To-
night on the Old Camp Grounds.” Otto and
Black Diamond had seemed to be walking
in time to it on that other day so long ago.

"You’ve got to eat first, Red,” Chilly was
saying. "We’ll get just a bite of supper and
then we’ll go find him if it takes all night.”

There was a stir down at the end of the
midway. Stragglers coming out of the side-
shows paused and gaped curiously. It
seemed to be a little procession, three men
followed by a crowd of urchins. The men
on the outside wore gleaming saucers on
their chests, and the one in the middle had
his hands handcuffed behind him. His
clothes were in shreds and one sleeve had
been torn off at the armpit. There was a
gash on his forehead and dried blood cov-
ered his face and the exposed parts of his
body.

As the trio approached, Linda and the
clown, the orchestra was playing the last
strains of "Tenting Tonight.” She rubbed
her eyes and leaned on Chilly. She must be
dreaming. Here was Otto, but it was not the
Otto she had known the day before. It was
Otto of ten years ago. He was a badly beat
up man, but he was a man all right. The
stoop and the shuffle were gone. He was
stepping right out and walking big and
cocky and triumphant, as he had that first
day, and his eyes were bold and shiny. Linda
almost expected to see the elephant behind
him, but there was only the crowd of small
boys.

“This here hombre says he belongs to the
circus,” one of the sheriffs began. "And he’s
looking for the lady that rides the white
horse. Be you she?”

Linda was suddenly soft and warm and
she felt all trembly inside.

"Why, Otto, honey,” she said. "Why,
Otto, you’ve come back.”

He was straining at the handcuffs and
the vivid picture came back to Linda —

66

WEIRD TALES

the picture of Black Diamond struggling to
free himself from his cruel trap as the two
men with rifles sneaked up on him.

"You let him free, you two. He belongs
to me.” Her voice was rising to a scream
as she advanced menacingly on the sheriffs.

Chilly Billy hastily stepped in front of
her.

"Easy, Red. Don't get going now. Let
me talk to these gentlemen.”

"Regular little spitfire, ain't she?” said
one of the sheriffs amiably. "Well; she can
have him. We want to get rid of him. We
want to get rid of him bad, before he starts
cutting up again.”

"He ain’t done nothin’ yet,” said the
other. "Only cleaned out a couple of tough
joints, and smashed some store windows
and broke the heads of some gamblers and
stole a horse'n buggy and broke out of jail
twicet.”

He grinned at Otto admiringly.

"If someone will pay for the damage he
done and get him out of town before he does
some real harm, we’ll be truly grateful.”

"I’ll pay for the damage,” said Linda.
She was going limp again. "And he’s leav-
ing town tonight, that is if — if — ”

Her chin started to quiver and she looked
at Otto. He spoke for the first time.

"I know about Black Diamond,” he said.
His voice was clear and strong. "I'm a free
man now. And I don’t belong to anybody.”
He bent over the tiny redhead and looked
deep into her eyes.

"We’re getting married tonight,” he said,
"And we’re going to Vermont. As soon as
I get rid of these bracelets, I’ll show you
who belongs to who.”

She was a little afraid of what she saw,
but she loved it. Taking the key from the
grinning sheriff she unlocked the handcuffs.

The Nixie’s Pool

r

G O NOT to the Nixie’s pool!

In those waters dim and cool
Gleams a pale and lovely face
Framed in hair like green fern -lace,
Arms of more than mortal grace
Smooth as lily, and as cool.

By all that’s holy, all that’s good,
Shun the hollow in the wood
Where the giant beech-trees grow
And the water-lilies glow,

And the rushes, parting, show
Wet limbs white as birchwood.

By LEAH BODINE DRAKE

Knight-at-arms with blazoned shield,
Plough-boy homing from the field,
Never heed what you_may hear:
Song that rises wild and clear
From the little hidden mere,

Like bird in no man’s field.

If you harken, if you follow
To her water-haunted hollow.

Bid farewell to tilting-ground,
Plodding ox or faithful hound! —
Deep in Faery you’ll be bound
With the Nixie of the hollow.

>tey Tim®<al ff®r Terror 8 .

is on the air .... in

STAY TUNED FOR TERROR

This programme is adapted by
ROBERT BLOCH from his stories
which have appeared in WEIRD
TALES, the narrator being Craig
Dennis.

STAY TUNED FOR TERROR is
produced by Neblett Radio Produc-
tions, with the active cooperation of
WEIRD TALES MAGAZINE . . .
for the enjoyment of fantasy fans
everywhere.

LOOK FOR ANNOUNCEMENTS
IN YOUR LOCAL NEWSPAPER
giving the broadcast time and dates
in your area.

And remember to ... •

Heading by BORIS DOLGOV

68

_/"ja in, Rain,
Go A wav!

For the smell of rain was a stench in his
nostrils, reminding him of death

A NTON MARKOV stood at the win-
/ \ dow, looking out into the dull gray
X. A gloom of the day. It was going to
rain. He pulled the shade down quickly,
fearing that he might see the first splatter-
ing of the drops against the sidewalk below.
Anton shuddered spasmodically. He was
afraid of rain, deathly afraid.

He knew there was no reason for his
fear; no sane reason that is. It has always
been with him, even when he was a small
child going to school. Often had he cow-
ered in the shelter of a doorway as a grayish
wetness flooded down from above, spending
its fury in bouncing water on glistening flag-
ging; eyes closed, afraid to look, afraid the
rain might touch him. His obsession sat like
an evil witch astride his thin shoulders,
haunting him. The smell of rain, that the
others he knew liked so much, was a stench
in his nostrils, reminding him of death. The
coolness after the storm was to him the lift-
ing of a nameless dread that had squeezed
his heart and frozen his muscles all during
the downpour.

He was mocked and misunderstood in
school. Now that he understood a little bet-
ter the inborn cruelty of children, he was
content. But in those days it had been an
added torment. Their shrill voices put lines
in his pallid face, and twisted the corners of
his thin mouth into sullen things.

He never told anyone about the dream.
There was no close friend with a willing ear
and a soothing tongue —

His hands were shaking. He patted his

By GARDNER F. FOX

RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY !

69

black, soiled tie with moist palms. Then he
put them on his coat and rubbed them dry,
and slipped them into his pockets Anton
looked around the room. He must find
something to do. He could not stand here
during the storm that was coming, and he
did not want to get into bed and pull the
covers over his head and lie there shivering
as with an ague.

Books on the littered desk he lifted and
rearranged and finally put down. His tongue
slipped out to moisten his lips. Something
to do, something to do. Yes, he would find
something to occupy the time when that
stuff would come pouring down, drench-
ing everything, casting a damp pall over the
city.

He looked at his wristwatch. Ten minutes
past three on a Saturday afternoon. No
work until Monday. And it was going to
rain.

‘'Damn!” he whispered. "Oh, damn!
Why can’t I be normal?”

Anton thought of Evans Carrel who
worked with him, and of Betty Stokes, won-
dering what they’d say if they could see him
hiding here from falling water.

"But it isn’t just falling water,” he lashed
out with hysteria lurking in the words. "It’s
more than that. I know it is, I know it. But
I can’t prove it. I don’t know what it is.
My dream doesn’t go that far!”

The dream. He could see the frogs being
beaten by needle-thin bamboo rods, their
fishbelly white throats bulging in their croak-
ing agony while the thin rods dug into them.
And after that beating the clap of thunder,
and the deluge when the heavens opened
like bombbay doors and the water came
down.

Always he lay on his bade, watching
that water coming toward him, never quite
touching him in his dream. That was what
added to his torment. His dream took him
just so far, and never any further.

He sat in a chair and buried his face in
his hands.

"What happens after that? Why doesn’t
the rain ever reach me?” he muttered thick-
ly. "If only it would, just once! Then I
might walk bareheaded in real rain, and not
be frightened by it!”

Why doesn’t it rain?

He looked up at the ceiling and cried,

"Get it over with! Get done with it. Then
I can relax. Let me alone, alone!”

With trembling hands, he rubbed his
face. He said softly, "This won’t do. I can’t
sit here and wait. Wait. Wait! I can’t do
it.”

H E opened a closet door and took out a
bottle and held it to the light. Empty
at a time like this. A drink or two might
snap him out of his fog. At least, it would
help him lie in a hazy coma on the bed.
Then let it rain all it wanted. He wouldn’t
care not with a few drinks in him. But the
bottle was empty. He dropped it into the
wastebasket and stood staring down at it.

Anton dropped into the chair again and
pulled paper and a pen toward him. But
when the gold point of the pen touched the
paper, it scratched and made a blue splash
of ink. He couldn’t even write a letter!

He shuddered, standing up so abruptly
the chair clattered over behind him. He let
it lie.

"I’m going out,” he said through stiff
lips, "and buy a bottle and hurry back. I’ve
got to. I can’t stand it, today. Some days it
isn’t this bad, but I need a drink today. A
lot of drinks.”

He talked to himself, shivering as he put
on a dark brown sweater, and his black coat
over it. He ran down the steps and into the
street.

It won’t rain before I come back, he
thought. It can’t play a trick like that, he
whispered, knowing all the time how treach-
erous this rain was with its soft touch that
was so much like a caress, yet evil as a
witch’s brew. Many the time he had thought
to elude it, and it tricked him; but once in
a while he tricked the rain, and deep in-
side him a flame of joy and triumph flared
into life. Those moments made his daring
possible. If the rain won all the time, he
would want to kill himself.

The store was not far. He could see the
red neon signs blazing in the window, mak-
ing the bottles glimmer. A faint red haze
of light fell on the sidewalk. The liquor
store window seemed a little friendlier with
those crimson neons blazing like beacons.

He dodged around the big gray roadster
parked in front of the store, and went in.
There was a man in the store, vaguely

.70

WEIRD TALES

familiar; the big shoulders in the tan cam-
el’s-hair coat, the blue jowls jutting from
under the wide mouth, the hearty voice. The
man turned as Anton closed the door.

"Anton! I’ll be damned. You live around
here?"

"Hello, Evans. What are you doing in
my neighborhood?"

"Stopped by with Betty Stokes. We're
going over to my diggings, for a snort or
two during the storm."

Anton looked back at the sullen gray day
through the plate glass window. He pulled
his coat a little tighter around him.

"Yes," he said nervously. "A storm is
brewing. I’d better hurry — before it breaks,
you know. Don’t like to get caught out in
the — the rain.”

Evans Carrel nodded, watching the clerk
wrap his bottle. He swung around sud-
denly, crying, "Why not come with us,
Tony? Up to my place. Hey? What say?”

"No, no. I couldn’t think of it,” Anton
said with an apologetic smile. He could not
let Evans and Betty see him in the blue funk
the rain caused. He looked at Evans shyly,
taking in his big, capable hands and the
grim face that was lightened a little by a
smiling mouth. He envied him his strength,
suddenly. Anton looked at the clerk.

"A bottle of rye, please. Any kind. No,
just a pint.”

Tucking his purchase under his arm,
Evans grinned at him.

"Sure you won’t join us? In this case,
three is company. Honest, old man, we’d
both love to have you. Why not come
along?"

T HE idea nearly tempted Anton. It made
him glow inside with friendliness, with
appreciation of this gesture. Perhaps it
would work out all right. He might forget
the rain with company. He thought, I wish I
owned the courage to go with them, to share
their talk and laughter, maybe in front of a
big red-brick fireplace. To let the trickle of
amber liquor go down his throat, warming
the guts of a man, making him mellow and
talkative. Perhaps it would make him for-
get the storm. Yet it never had in the past,
when he had tried being with others. No,
he'd better not. Not today. Not while the
clouds were so black, the sky so brooding.

"Sorry. Maybe some other time. Is that
all right, Evans?”

"Why sure, if you say so. I thought —
well, okay. So long.”

Evans Carrel waved his hand, watching
little Markov flash out the door, scurry
across the gray street, run down the side-
walk.

"Funny codger,” he muttered. "Can’t
understand him. Seems to be afraid, some-
times. Looks as though he expected a hob-
goblin to jump up and make off with him.”

H E SIGHED and went out to the car
where Betty Stokes was making up her
red mouth with lipstick, peering into the
mirror she held in her hand, her lips pursed
a little. She turned and looked at him, see-
ing his frown.

"I saw Anton in the store. I’ve been won-
dering about him."

"He’s afraid of the rain," she told him,
snapping her compact shut and putting it
in her handbag.

"The rain?" asked Evans blankly. "I’ve
heard of guys being scared of lightning or
loud thunder. Sort of childhood fixation.
But rain!”

He drove through traffic with practised
ease. He looked sideways at the girl.

"How do you know about it? I always
thought he was a secretive guy. Never says
much to me. That is, nothing about his per-
sonal life.”

"Oh, it was on a day like this. We got
caught together in a regular downpour. We
ducked into a doorway. He was shivering
fit to kill. I thought he was sick. Then I
saw his eyes. All white, they were. They
rolled a little. His face was pale as new
laundry.”

Her shoulders shook. She burrowed down
into the upholstery, closer to his warm side.
She said, "I was sure scared. I thought he
was having a fit. But he managed to tell
me rain frightened him heaps. Something
about a dream he’d had ever since he was a
boy, or some such thing.”

"Mmm, Dreams.”

Evans Carrel drove through the night,
his thoughts churning to the back-and-
forth swish of the windshield wiper that cast
splashing drops from the glass, flinging
them aside in a frenzy of motion.

RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY !

71

T HE next Monday, Anton felt Evans’ dark
eyes fastening on him from time to time.
When he would glance up, the big man al-
ways moved his eyes away. Finally he came
and stood near Anton’s desk.

"Say, Tony. I don’t mean to pry, but —
well, what I'm trying to get at is — ah, the
rain. You and rain, I mean. You’re afraid
of it, aren’t you?”

Anton felt a hand tighten on his stomach,
knotting it. His lips went stiff, and the
blood began to pump in his veins. Fear of
ridicule made him say, "I don’t see what
business it is of yours, Evans. That is, if
I am, it’s my affair.”

The big man’s mouth drooped contritely.
He managed a grin, shuffling his feet a
little.

"I don’t blame you, Anton. It isn’t any
of my business. But I was wondering if I
could help you. I’d like to help you, Tony.
I mean, you’re a nice guy. I like you.”
Anton felt the hot surge of friendliness
coming up within him. He flushed a bit
on his pallid cheeks, ashamed.

"Sorry, Evans. This inhibition has been
with me so long that I’ve grown used to it,
but no one ever talked to me about it. Years
ago in school, kids used to make fun of
me. I guess you can understand that.”

"Sure can!” exclaimed Carrel heartily.
"Frankly, I’m the sort of fellow who would
have made fun of you, too, when I was a
kid. I’m what you call an extrovert. Lots
of laughter and parties, always showing the
way I felt. But not now. The years make
a difference. Make a man smarter. Teach
him things.”

He perched on the edge of the desk,
swinging a pointed tan shoe. His wool
stockings were ribbed, and his gray trousers
were carefully creased.

"Look, Tony. What I’m driving at is
this. I used to teach psychology in a jerk-
water college you’ve never heard of. I even
wrote a book on applied psychology. Even
had it published before I caught wise that
I’d never make a fortune that way. I took
up the selling game instead, and the psych
I know comes in handy.

"Suppose I were to cure you of your
fear, Tony? I’d use applied psychology, and
I know enough to make it safe. We’d ex-
amine that dream of yours under hypnosis,

and bring it to the fore. Talk about it. Find
out what makes it come. Once you know
that, the cure is easy.”

Anton opened his eyes wide.

"Do you think it will work? Is it that
simple?*''

"Sure. Get at the "subconscious. Find out
what quirk in your past makes you dream.
Fear is just a glandular reaction to a stim-
ulus. Babies are born with only two fears,
that of loud noise and of falling. Think
how many other fears we acquire in life!
And there’s a reason for it, too. Earlier ex-
periences teach us to beware of mad dogs, of
a maniac with a gun, and so on. Somewhere
along the line, you got that fear of rain.
We have to learn what that was.”

Anton looked at his hands and shuddered.
In the dream, those hands were tied, and
rain was coming toward him. Yet it never
touched him. Always the dream stopped at
a certain point. It never went any further.

He looked up, saying, "But my dream
has nothing to do with normal life, Evans.
It’s something fantastic, utterly unbeliev-
able, as though an ancestral recollection was
stuck in the memory passages of my brain
and couldn’t get where it belongs. I think
I am reliving something that happened to a
forebear of mine.”

"All right. So much the better. Then it
can’t possibly affect you!”

He slapped Anton on the shoulder en-
couragingly.

A NTON moved through his duties that
day and the next with a flicker of hope
burning brightly inside him. He went to
the movies at night, and even felt so good
that he went to a dancehall and spent three
hours dancing with a pretty redhead.

"Evans’ll cure me, all right,” he told him-
self, walking home in the dark, cool night,
hands in his pockets, heels tapping boldly
on the sidewalk. "A man like Evans Carrel
knows what he’s doing. A professor of psy-
chology. Who would have thought it?”
The days came and went. Late one after-
noon Evans stopped at his desk.

"I’m going to leave the day and the time
to you, Tony. Betty would like to be in on
it, though. She’s interested in this sort of
thing.”

"I don’t mind," Anton said quickly.

72

WEIRD TALES

’’She has a cousin that works in a museum.
She said he put her wise to a lot of super-
stitions about rain. She got me interested
and I studied up myself.”

"Study rain?” Anton was amazed.

"Say, you mean to tell me you’ve been
fighting this thing all your life and you
never thought of reading up about it?”
Anton lowered his head, shaking it. Now
that Evans mentioned it, the thought
numbed him. Why hadn’t he done that?
Even a moron would have had sense enough
to do that! He looked up embarrassedly, ask-
ing, "What did you find out?”

Evans pushed his lower lip forward,
frowning.

"Frankly, I didn’t know there was so
much on the subject. Rainworship and all
that sort of thing. Rain-belts. Rain-stones.
Sacrifices to the rain gods. There’s some-
thing about it in all types of legends: Mex-
ican, Greek, Eddie, Indian.”

Anton stared.

"Look,” said Evans. "What I'm going to
suggest may sound drastic, but I’d like to
arrange a little drama. You say you think
you are a sacrifice in your dream? Good.
Then suppose we stage that sacrifice in real-
ity. Try to summon rain, to show you it’s
all hocus-pocus and no earthly use at all.”
"Can you do that?”

"As well as I know how. Betty is going
to help me. She’s uncovered a lot of stuff,
too. About frogs — ”

"They beat them with little rods,” whis-
pered Anton through suddenly bloodless
lips. "They kill them by whipping them
to death. It’s horrible to hear them screech-
ing in my dreams.”

E VANS looked uncomfortable, moving
his neck inside his shirt-collar, and rub-
bing his hands together.

"Yeah, I know. But your dreams have
to be duplicated. I’m going to have real live
frogs there for a sacrifice. It isn’t pleasant
I know, but we have to be exact.”

Anton put a hand on his arm. "Evans,
you don’t have to go through with this. You
aren’t the type of man who would whip
frogs and take any interest in it. Let’s for-
get the whole thing.”

"Nor on your life. I’m going to cure you
if it takes every frog in the county. You’re

going to be well or I’ll know the reason
why!”

T HE following Saturday was one of those
May days when the sky hangs pale
Mue and bright over a blooming Earth,
when the air is warm with sunlight and fra-
grant with the perfumes of new flowers.
Birds carolled in tree-branches above his
head as Anton walked to the office passing a
street peddler slowly pacing behind a creak-
ing pushcart, singing softly to himself. Sun-
light slipped through the ties in the ele-
vated to warm Anton through his coat,
flooding him with strength.

"This is the day,” he said when he saw
Evans.

He finished his work early, using his rest-
lessness as energy. He went down the hall
near a window and smoked two cigarettes,
one after the other, while he stared out
over the city. He thought jubilantly, this is
the day! Tomorrow I will be a free man.

"Hey,” yelped Betty, tugging on his arm.
"Come out of it. You’ve been here an
hour. We’ve looked all over for you.”

They would not hear his apologies, but
each took an arm and tugged him with them
toward the elevator. He caught a drift of
perfume from Betty’s maroon sweater, and
the faint scent of tobacco from Evans’ tweed
jacket. Anton had never before thought of
the pleasure in being alive and normal, of
the smells and the tastes and the sights there
were to enjoy.

He slipped easily into their riotous mood.
In Evans’ big gray roadster he sat with an
arm around Betty. Once he slid his eyes side-
ways at her, liking the clear white smooth-
ness of her cheeks, the long lashes framing
her cool gray eyes. Why, if Evans were
right, if he did manage to cure him, he
could find a girl like Betty for himself.
Then the four of them could take long rides
together. He had money saved up; he had
never had any way to spend it, before. Al-
ways the rain discouraged him.

"It’ll be a totally different life,” he told
them eagerly, his face coming alive, losing
a little of its pallor and the lines etched
in it by constant fright. "We’ll go on pic-
nics, and to the beach. Maybe Evans can
even give me exercises to do so’s I’ll have
muscles, too.”

RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY !

Betty patted his hands, smiling at him.
"You’ll be a new man, Tony. You wait.
Evans has gone to a lot of fuss — ”

"I know. I want to repay him, some-
how!’’

"Forget it,” grinned Evans. "I’m curious
about your taste in girls. I want to see you
on a dance floor. That’s why I’m doing it.”
They laughed and the roads went by,
and the car took corners and slid power-
fully along a highway.

The engine sputtered and died in sight
of a low white cottage that had rows of
purple irises along one wall. A slatestone
terrace lay behind the cottage, giving the
appearance of a flat sea-anchor to the trim '
house. Blue shutters and a blue door with
brightly gleaming brass knocker and door-
knob added gaiety to the white front.

"Doggone,” muttered Evans with a rue-
ful chuckle, working the choke and starter.
"All week I’ve been meaning to have this
fixed. Now of all days it acts up.”

"There’s the cottage, Evans,” said Betty.
"It doesn’t make any difference. We’re prac-
tically in front of it.”

Evans said, "I’ll have a mechanic come
and pick it up,” as he got out of the car
and led them toward the house. Jiggling a
keyring, he unlocked the door and threw it
open.

"Come on in and I’ll rustle up a drink.”

A NTON came to a dead stop in the door-
way of the living-room, two steps
above it. The furniture had been removed.
On the bare boards of the waxed floor were
scattered grains of sand, mixed with fibre
rugs in exotic designs of red and black and
yellow.

Against the walls leaned bamboo poles
latched together with leather thongs. A
table native to the South Seas stood in
the center of the room. Triangular stones lay
on its wooden top, blending their flat pal-
lor with the red and purple hues of a long
belt. A floorlamp and an easychair rested
near the table.

Anton swung around in amazement at a
grinning Evans.

"You — where’d you get all this stuff?”
"That cousin of Betty’s. She convinced
him that she needed it, so he let her borrow
it.”

73

Betty picked up the pointed stones and
the red-purple belt.

"These are real rain-stones and rain-belt.
They used to be part of rain ceremonials
somewhere. I forgot the name of the place,
though Jimmy told me.”

"What’d I say?” asked Evans. "Said there
was a lot of this stuff about rain you didn’t
know. Zeus is a rain-god in Greek myth-
ology. God of the heavens, known as the
'cloud gatherer.’ The expression 'Zeus rains’
was a popular one. They had their rites on
mountain tops to get . nearer the home of
the gods.”

W HILE he talked, Evans went back and
forth, from kitchen to living-room,
carrying jars and buckets of earth, and
pitchers filled with water.

"In Crete they worshipped on Mounts
Ida and Dikte. In Thessaly, on Olympus.
Then there’s the Danaid legend where fifty
dames are condemned to fill a bottomless pit
with leaking pitchers for their sin of mur-
der. They used those bottomless jars in their
magic. To let the water soak from them into
the earth. Sympathetic magic, you know.
Imitating the real thing to induce it to hap-
pen.”

"But — but do we want it to rain?” won-
dered Anton.

"Of course not. But I’m prepared for
anything you can think of in that dream
of yours. I want to duplicate it, to show you
that the m umbo-jumbo your subconscious
has thought up is so much hogwash!”

Betty- pushed Anton into a chair, chuck-
ling, "You sit down, Tony. Let Evans and
I get everything ready. We want you to be
completely at your ease.”

Evans laughed, "He has the easiest job
I ever heard of. All he has to do is fall
asleep.”

Anton felt the easychair clutch him. He
leaned his head against the backrest. A feel-
ing of ease flooded his veins and limbs. He
was in the hands of friends who were ready
to cure him. He smiled.

Evans turned on the big floodlamp as
Betty pulled down the Venetian blinds, and
pinned strips of dark cloth across them. The
room was dark, except for the single beam
of whiteness glaring from the lamp, into
his open eyes. Evans adjusted a fan across

74

WEIRD TALES

the flat front of the lamp. He clicked some-
thing.

The beam of light winked as the fan
slowly rotated, cutting off the glare, letting
it slip through its openings in patterns of
white after darkness. Dot and dash, dash
and dot, light and darkness, darkness and
light.

The alternation of white and black tired
his eyes. Blinking them, he felt languorous,
tired.

"Look up at the light, Tony. Let it get
inside your head. Ah, that’s it. Makes you
sleepy, doesn’t it?”

Anton nodded.

"Yes, you’re tired, tired. So why not
sleep. Sleep, sleep . . . you want to sleep,
so why not? You are safe, here with us,
where nothing can harm you, so sleep,
sleep. ...”

Blinky light. Murmuring voice. Slipping
senses.

"Sleep, sleep, sleep. ...”

Eyes closing, shutting out the world.

From a distance a dull voice muttered,
"Sleep, sleep. . . .”

Then, nothingness.

N O, not quite nothingness. There was
something here. He could see it flick-
ering, as though he stood in a long tunnel.
It was red, and it shot up toward a vast
ceiling. Something was moving in front of
tlie redness, and he found that he could
see a bit clearer.

The redness shining in the night was a
huge fire. He lay in a cave, and his legs
and wrists were bound, and there was the
sweat of terror on his forehead. From where
he reclined on his side, with his face turned
toward the entrance of the cave, he could
see the serpent priestess dancing around the
scarlet flames.

A greenish reptile twisted and writhed
in her white arms. Flickering tongues of
crimson mimicked k behind the priestess’
dancing body. The supple twist of her long
white legs, and the rippling of her upheld
arms formed a sinuous pattern that blended
with the writhings of the snake and the
dancings of the flames. Everything was dis-
torted,- as the rain distorted vision. Even
the music from the hide drums in the shad-
ows lost rhythm, pounded and beat in eerie

tempo. Behind the dancer, a row of young
girls held their arms aloft and let them
ripple up and down.

The priestess with the flowing black hair
lifted one white foot after another, stepping
as though on glowing coals, foot bent grace-
fully at the ankle: advancing, then retreat-
ing. In her long-nailed hands she held a
purple jar, shaped like a gigantic raindrop.
In the red glow of the firelight, three girls
weaved toward her. They wore long, flow-
ing robes: the first was clad in red, the see-
ing all in white. The third was garbed in
blue, and the last came dressed in a spotted
tunic, for she was the fog and the rain creep-
ing and dripping among the branches and
the leaves of trees.

In their hands the girls bore clumps of
earth. From the purple, raindrop pitcher
the priestess poured water that glistened
like blood in the reflection of the fire. The
water muddied the earth that the acolytes
held in their palms, causing it to slop over
and drop toward the ground.

Seeing that, the watcher in the cave
writhed and bent in frantic efforts to escape.
He knew what was coming; knew and
dreaded it with all the horror that fright-
ened his muscles and congealed his flesh.
They would be approaching him, now; him
and the girl who was to be the other sacri-
fice.

He saw them, big blobs o? blackness
mounting on slogging footsteps, coming up
the path. Like, silent shadows, they drew
nearer, only the harsh breathing in their
throats signalling their presence.

Hands closed on him, lifting. He
shrieked, and his keening despair rang in
the cave. In those hands he could not strug-
gle. They were too powerful, too used to
handling fright-maddened beings.

Toward the fire they bore him, and be-
yond it, where an altar of stained stone was
set. Rusted chains clanked dismally as they
were raised and bound about him. His roll-
ing eyes saw the sky, dark and sullen.

To one side something white flashed: the
girl. Her long, flaxen hair swam in the
breeze. Her legs and arms were in supple
motion, untiring in their frantic struggles.
She was flung down beside him. He could
hear the sob in her raw throat. Her naked
shoulder shook against his.

RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY!

71

Now the dancers were still, breathless.
The priestess and her acolytes were shower-
ing the fire with water, making it hiss and
splutter.

Soon the sacrifices would be left alone to
the rain-god. Already the people were with-
drawing on careful feet, stooping low. They
cast frightened glances at the forms on the
stone altar; he could see the whites of their
eyes, and the quiver of shoulders when
someone shuddered.

The fire was out. The priestess brought
forward the frogs and laid them, bound
widi withes, across the altar. In her right
hand she grasped a bundle of needle-like
rods. Slowly she began to pound on the
frogs. . . .

Aieeee! Aieeee!

The priestess screamed above the bel-
lowing of the dying frogs. She lifted her
face toward the sky and shrieked again.

Thunder rolled in sonorous waves across
the brooding sky.

A jagged streak of whiteness rippled
from the clouds, flashing the gloom into
momentary day.

The rods were dyed in red, rising and
falling, flipping gruesome drops across the
altar. The frogs were still, now, and quiet.

A blast of thunder rocked the earth so
that even the stone altar quaked! It was a
stentorian blast of sheer power that deaf-
ened all who heard it.

The rain was coming down.

Anton screamed. . . .

NTON opened his eyes.

A white witch stood in the shadows
before him, behind a glowing fire, with a
serpent twisted about her smooth shoulders.
Her shadow readied to his feet, and in the
lifting flame of the fire the priestess loomed
enormous.

A hand tightened on his arm, keeping
him frozen in his chair while it whispered,
"It's Betty. Ssshh!’’

The white woman was pouring water
that glistened like blood in the red light of
the fire onto parched earth in a bowl. To
one side frogs were croaking where they lay
tied across a stone altar.

"What is she doing?” croaked Anton.

"Duplicating your dream. She is doing
everything the priestess did. You told us

everything that happened. You answered
questions I asked, about words and move-
ments of the ritual.”

"Oh. But my dream ended as it always
did, didn’t it? The rain never got to me. It
didn’t touch me. But I was afraid of it.”

Evans scowled, whispering, "I don't
know. Your dream did stop at that point.
We want to see if anything will happen if
we repeat the rite.”

Anton looked at Betty, recognizing her
in her in her outlandish costume. This was
all kind of silly, he thought. When I’m
awake, hard reality says this is nonsense.
He was swiftly losing the stark fear that
haunted his dream.

He chuckled, "I hope it works.”

"Ssssh. Just watch.”

Anton had to admit that Betty had
learned her part well, listening to him gib-
ber in his sleep. She even danced like that
other priestess, with the same rippling beat
to her arms and legs, and with the identical
twisting sinuousity of torso. Now the
parched earth was flooded with water, and
she was placing the frogs across the altar.

She was whipping them, and the frogs
were crying.

The rods were red. Anton found that his
palms were aching where his fists were
clenched so tightly that he was driving his
fingernails into his palms. Across the fire,
Betty fastened her fathomless eyes on him.
She was saying something in the voice of the
dream priestess. He remembered it now.
It was the ritual saying that always pre-
ceeded her screams.

"Aieeee! Aieeee !”

Nothing happened. Cowering in his
chair, unable to believe his own ears, Anton
kept staring at Betty across the fire and
licking his lips with a dry tongue.

No noise. No thunder.

No pounding of rain on roof or shingled
walls.

Evans clicked the lights on. He stood
grinning in a corner of the room. Betty was
sweeping a robe about herself, brushing
back a lock of her hair. Anton thought she
looked a little dazed, but his eyes saw the
stuffed serpent just then and he laughed.

"It’s all over, it’s all over,” he babbled
between peals of mirth. "And nothing hap-
pened. Nothing at all.”

76

WEIRD TALES

He ran to the windows and ripped away
the shades, lifting the blinds. A burst of
yellow sunlight beat in at him, warming
face and arm and chest. Swinging around,
he held out his arms.

He shouted, "I’m free! I'm free!”

Evans was pounding his back. Betty
laughed and kissed his cheek, but kept her
eyes carefully turned from his.

"You don’t know what this means to me.
You can’t possibly realize, not possibly. Only
a blind man given his sight could know. All
my life. That dream! Never stopping.
Afraid every moment that it was going to
rain.”

Evans poured cocktails, shouting glee-
fully. "This is a celebration that’s going to
be a celebration. What’ll we do tonight,
Tony? Can you get him a girl, Betty? How’s
about dancing somewhere? The treat’s on
me.”

"Oh, no. On me!” crowed Anton, slap-
ping his chest and taking the drink. "I’m
going to spend some of that money I’ve been
making. I want to enjoy it. I even,” he
flushed a little, "put a hundred dollars in
my mattress, thinking that if I were cured,
I’d want to celebrate with you.”

They drank and talked. Anton looked at
Betty and said, "You sounded just like the
priestess. And those words you spoke be-
fore you yelled! Marvelous. Exact intona-
tions and accent.”

Evans chuckled, "Betty used to be in
amateur theatricals."

Betty brushed a lock of hair again, mov-
ing her hand restlessly, as though she were
trying to make up her mind to say some-
thing. Her eyes were big, and a little fright-
ened.

"I — I didn’t say those words. I mean, I
don’t remember. It was as though somebody
else said them.”

"Well, of course,” shouted Evans. "You
were acting your part so well, you lost all
connection with your real identity. Every
good actress has had moments like that.”

Betty smiled, then laughed.

"I didn’t think of that. Aren’t I silly?”

"You’re wonderful,” Anton said. "You’ve
helped make a new man of me.”

He went to the window and opened it,
stood breathing in the fragrance of the grass
pinks near .the house. He grinned up at the

pale blue sky that was dappled with fleecy
clouds.

"Let it rain!” he shouted. "I’m not afraid
any more. I’ve seen my dream come alive,
and nothing happened.”

He drank a little more, then grinned at
them. "I have to go home and dress.”
"Wait a while," said Evans. "The me-
chanic isn’t back with the car yet. It’s three
miles to the railroad station.”

“That’s a good walk. It will do me good.
Honest, I’m so glad to be alive that I’ll en-
joy that walk more than I can tell you."

Betty laughed, "I’m tempted to go along
just so that I can watch you, Tony. I’ve
never seen anybody so happy.”

"No, no. You stay with Evans. I’ll meet
you at the office corner at eight. Tonight is
our night to celebrate. The three of us.”

H E WAVED goodbye, seeing them stand-
ing in the doorway, Evans with his
arm around Betty’s shoulder as she twirled
a glass in her left hand. Behind them the
hall light made bronze glimmerings in the
shadows. Evans’ coat blew aside momen-
tarily in the warm May breeze.

Anton danced, walking along the road.
The smile on his lips has come to stay.
There was no fear now to put its paralyzing
hand on his heart. He glanced around at the
fields, at green grass swaying slightly, at
trees with their freshly green leaves. This
was life all around him, life that he could
enjoy to the full. He thought for an in-
stant of the grass and the flowers and how
they ate just as humans ate. He wondered
if they enjoyed their food as he was going
to enjoy his from now on. Their food was
nitrogen, oxygen and other chemicals.

He must study up on things like that, he
thought. Now that his days and nights be-
longed to him and not to his fear, he would
have plenty of time. It would make inter-
esting reading to learn how the sciences
helped the earth. He recalled reading some-
thing about the fact that the human body
was just a lot of chemicals, and mostly
water.

He took off his dark hat and let the wind
ruffle his hair. He twisted the hat in his
hands, and grinned, looking down at it. No
more dark hats and dark clothes for him!
"I’m going to get a snappy sports jacket,

RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY!

with checks in it,” he told himself. "And
light tan slacks, and brown-and-white sad-
dle shoes, with thick rubber soles. From
now on, I’m going to be a sport. Why —
I’m just beginning to live!”

There was a shadow on the ground be-
fore him. Startled, he looked up. A black
cloud had come up out of nowhere, obscur-
ing the sun. Odd, he hadn’t noticed it be-
fore. But why think about a dark cloud?

He went on gaily, whistling a tune he had
danced to at the dancehall the other night.
No need to be afraid of a dark cloud!

The shadows increased. They lay across
meadow and hill, trees and grass and wild
flowers. Anton checked his stride. He was
halfway from Evans’ cottage to the station.
A mile and a half, either way. He looked
around, but there were only open fields on
all sides of him. There was no shelter here
from the rain.

And it looked like rain all right.

Anton lifted his chin, bit at his lips to
prevent its quivering, saying in a choked
voice, "Come on, rain. I’m not afraid of
you, any more.”

He started to swagger down the road, but
his heart thumped and pounded in his chest.

A blast of thunder rocked the earth; made
it shudder wildly, so that Anton felt the
ground move beneath his feet.

For one instant he stood with feet locked
to the dusty road. Then he whimpered, "I —
I — it was like the blast that comes in my
dreams! What comes after that, when the
rains come down — I — / don’t know!”

H E licked his lips, and ran. His feet
pounded on the road, raising dry dust
that choked him. The day was hushed after
that stentorian clap of thunder. It lay still,
waiting. Over everything a pall of darkness
came down, like a blanket, smothering.

The earth was black with false night. An-
ton could hardly see where he put his feet,
but he kept on running. He ran madly. • It
was going to rain, any moment now. And
there was no shelter.

At first there was only a drop or two. An-
ton felt them on his hands and face. They
came faster and faster while he ran, beating
about him, drumming down on the earth
road. They were stinging him, he realized,

77

like acid. He shook drops of water from
his hands, moaning to himself.

His clothes were sodden, heavy with wet.
Feverishly he ripped coat and shirt loose,
dropped his trousers. It will be easier run-
ning, he thought.

The rain hurt. It dug and ate at his
flesh. It was as though it were eating him.

He looked at his hand, lifting it. In
the darkness it was hard to see, but what he
saw wrenched a scream of frozen horror
from his lungs.

His hand was sha peless /

No longer did his hand have fingers or a
thumb! It was just ' a lump, like dough
beaten into a formless ball. He looked at
his chest, saw it, too, was changing shape.

And his feet! Good God, his feet!

They were not feet any longer. Just stubs
where his ankles should be, stubs on whidi
he thumped along, maniacally. He knew,
now. He knew what happened after the
burst of titanic thunder. The rain came to
eat its sacrifices. It came and swept them
away, washed them into the ground, let the
ground absorb -the chemicals in their bodies
so the ground would be fertile!

He caught sight of the railroad station,
but he could not run any more. It seemed
that there was a sort of shack, a small house
of some sort a little distance away from
him, but he could not be certain.

Anyhow, he had neither arms nor legs
now with whidi to crawl. He would have
to lie here and accept what the rain did to
him.

Once he gave a little moan, but after that
he was silent. Soon there was nothing there
to make a noise.

The disappearance of Anton Markov was
rather sensational for a few days. Betty
and Evans found themselves in the lime-
light, and there was some ugly talk, but
nothing was ever proved.

There was talk of another kind near the
little railroad station where Mike Murphy
lived. He had a shack with a row of roses
a few feet from the hut. That year the roses
bloomed in red and pink and white mag-
nificence.

Everybody asked Mike how he did it.

He was too poor to buy fertilizer.

Y

Highway

BY HAROLD LAWLOR

I T IS only in justice to myself that I set
down this complete account of the hap-
penings in the Museum of Industry last
September. In the affair of the 1905 Pope-
Hartford runabout, I have known bewilder-
ment and suffered a haunting sense of guilt.

And yet the three local newspapers were
most unfair at the time. One ignored my
story altogether, another misspelled my
name, and the third chose to treat the whole
thing facetiously — as if I were a senile old
fool for whom the wagon should be sent!

Heading by A. R. TILBURNE

There are those tv ho can never believe in a life
after death . . . yet if they knew . . .

78

THE SILVER HIGHWAY

79

It is not that I wish boastfully to pose as
a deus ex machina, but I was surely an
instrument of Fate that September after-
noon as I walked up the broad shallow mar-
ble steps of the Museum. For this I feel
to be a certainty: it was only to someone
like me — so close to death myself — that the
secret of the Pope-Hartford runabout could
have been revealed.

I am seventy-three years old, a retired rail-
road executive living on a small pension,
slowly dying of an incurable disease. I have
no wish to excite your pity; death, to me,
will come only as a welcome release. I have
no family, my friends are gone, my life’s
work done. No, my condition is neither
sad nor pitiable.

But one can’t sit around, bleakly waiting
for the grave to yawn. So I have fallen into
the habit of visiting the many museums
for which this city is noted. And of them
all the Museum of Industry interested me
most on that first visit.

As a retired railroad man, the early trains
— the actual coaches and locomotives them-
selves, not miniatures or replicas, set up
on the Museum floor — fascinated me. So
I lingered over them, and it wasn’t until late
in the afternoon that I Anally visited the
exhibit known as A STREET IN 1905.

I’m not sure in my own mind even now
whether I should regret having entered it.

This display is housed in a separate room
to itself. And it is exactly what its name
implies. There’s a red cobbled street, lined
with shop windows filled with figures
dressed in the clodiing of that day. There's
a nickelodeon where you may view cinemas
featuring Fatty Arbuckle, Mabel Normand
and other early stars of the motion picture
industry — all to the tune of a jangling piano.
And at intervals along the curbs there are
perhaps a dozen motorcars of that era, as
bright of brass and shiny of enamel as if
they had at just that moment been driven
from the showroom floors.

Almost you feel as if you might get in
and drive away. Gas street lamps of the
period flicker duskily, and it is only after
your eyes have become accustomed to the
dim light that you see the cars are elevated
slightly on blocks of wood so that their tires
might not rot from contact with the cobble-
stones.

Tlie exhibit was to me a mixture of pleas-
ure and pain. Oldsmobile, Brush, Simplex.
As I recognized the different cars, I felt
pang after pang of nostalgia, remembering
back to that time forty years before when
I, too, was young. Many of the makes were
obsolete, and had been for years. Soon
now, I also —

I sighed, and went slowly on. And then
I stopped. There stood a Pope-Hartford run-
about, proud in the splendor of its bright
red paint and glittering brass headlights.
I can’t tell you of my delight. I almost
cried out, as if meeting an old friend. For
the very first car I’d ever owned had been
its twin.

And so, halting, thus it was that I met —
her.

BEG your pardon,” came a voice.

I blinked in the dim light, and set-
tled my glasses more firmly upon my nose.
At first I thought her a wax figurine, placed
on the front seat of the Pope-Hartford to
add to the authenticity of the exhibit, for
there had been other such figures in the
cars I had passed. But, no.

She was dressed in a long linen duster
and a linen hat, bound round with an
emerald veil tied in a bow under her chin.
Modish clothing for motoring — in 1905.
And she was looking at me, and smiling.
She wasn’t beautiful, but she had the pretti-
ness of youth. An air of breathless ex-
pectancy hovered about her, and oh! there
was a lovely eager light in her eyes.

It’s strange now to remember that I was
not particularly startled when she spoke.
Perhaps at my age one becomes like a child
again, and accepts things as easily as chil-
dren do. Perhaps it was just that I was
a little dazed at discovering she was flesh
and blood, and not a model of wax. For 1
didn’t cry out' in alarm or surprise. I jusl
stood there, blinking a little in confusion.

"I beg your pardon,” she said again,
leaning forward a trifle eagerly. "I wonder
if you know what’s keeping Arthur?”

"Why- — why, no, I don’t,” I said.

"Oh, dear.” The car had no doors, and
I could see her tiny foot tapping impa-
tiently on the rubber-covered floorboard,
"I’ve been waiting so long. He said he’d
be right out.” She blushed then, and cast

80

WEIRD TALES

down her eyes, as if her impatience embar-
rassed her. "I suppose you’re one of the
wedding guests?”

. I didn't know what to say. She appeared
not to notice my confusion, so engrossed was
she in her own thoughts.

"I’ve been waiting hours and hours, and
still he doesn’t come.” Her pink mouth
pouted prettily*. “I’m so excited, and he
knows excitement is bad for my heart. That’s
why Papa objected to our marriage just at
first, you know, even though he likes Arthur
so much and says he has a fine business
head on his shoulders.

“And so he has, but — ” She dimpled
and leaned forward with a pretty air of con-
fiding in me. "What 1 like best about him
is that he has such a poetic nature, too. Last
night he said, 'Soon now, Lucy, we’ll be
riding down that silver highway — to happi-
ness.’ ”

S HE blushed, and looked at me from
under her long lashes. “Isn’t that love-
ly? Oh, I can hardly wait! If you see Arthur,
will you please tell him to hurry?’’

Her voice stopped, and she looked at me
imploringly.

I put a hand to my forehead. For some
minutes past I’d been feeling very odd. It
had been so long since I’d had lunch that
I was a little dizzy. I couldn’t seem to
understand what this was all about. For the
first time the whole business began to
strike me as queer. Why should she be
sitting here all alone? She kept looking ex-
pectantly past my shoulder, but when I
turned there was nothing to see save one
of the lighted shop-windows in the exhibit.
Everything was flickering eerily in the dim
light that only emphasized the general
gloom.

It was while I was standing there, waver-
ing, uncertain how to answer but unable to
move away, that a new voice spoke up.

“Is anything the matter, sir? Are you
ill?”

I looked aside to find a blue-uniformed
guard standing near, watching me anxiously.

"Why, no,” I said. “I was just talking to
the young lady.”

“What young lady, sir?”

I looked at him, wondering. She was sit-
ting there, right in front of him. He

couldn’t help but see her. "The young lady
in the car,” I said.

He looked from me to the car, and back
again. His anxiety deepened, judging from
his frown. “There is no young lady in the
car.”

I could see no point to his joke, if joke
it was. The girl — she’d called herself Lucy
— was still gazing expectantly past my shoul-
der, looking directly into the guard’s face. I
smiled at her uncertainly. "The attendant
says you're not sitting there in the car.”

She looked at me, wide-eyed. “What at-
tendant? There’s no one here but you and
me.”

I could feel myself going then. The
lights of the exhibit, dim before, were now
flashing brilliantly, on and off, like light-
ning. Or so it seemed. I was having trouble
with my breathing, and my heart was beat-
ing in sickening, erratic tempo. I felt a
strong arm across my back, just under my
shoulders, supporting me.

Then everything went black.

T HERE was the sharp sting of ammonia
in my nostrils. I turned my head away,
protesting thickly. Then someone was hold-
ing a glass to my lips. Someone was mur-
muring soothingly. 'Take it easy now.
Take it easy now, sir, and you’ll be all
right. There,” as my eyes opened, “you’re
feeling better already, aren’t you?”
Instantly my head cleared. 1 felt none
of the usual bewilderment that attends a
return to consciousness. I remembered dis-
tinctly, vividly, all that had happened in
A STREET IN 1905.

“The girl,” I mumbled. “The girl in
the Pope-Hartford runabout.”

"He’s still dazed.” It was the guard
speaking to another. They flanked me on
either side. We were sitting on one of the
marble benches in the foyer of the Mu-
seum. “He keeps talking about a girl, and
there wasn’t any girl in the car.”

"Poor old codger,” the other said. “The
exhibit probably brings back memories to
him, Mullen.”

I began excitedly to explain the whole
thing, but they hushed me up. “Come now,
sir,” said Mullen, "if you’re feeling better,
I’m afraid you’ll have to leave. It’s way
past closing time.”

THE SILVER HIGHWAY

81

It seemed useless to protest any more, to
hammer against the wall of their unbelief.
Besides, I wanted time to think. I declined
Mullen’s offer to call me a cab, and walked
down the marble steps. The Museum, if
you remember, is situated in one of our
large public parks. When I was far enough
away to attract no attention in case the
guards were still watching, I sank onto a
park bench.

I was shaken by my experience, and I
couldn’t clarify it in my mind. How much
did I actually remember, how much had I
imagined? If the girl, Lucy, had really
been there, why had I seen her when the
guard couldn’t? Why had she seen me,
when she couldn't see the guard? Had they
both been lying? And, if so, to what pur-
pose? Why should they attempt to deceive
me, a total stranger? It was pointless.

There remained only one plausible ex-
planation. My illness was causing me to
have hallucinations. But this theory I re-
jected instantly. I was positive that I
hadn’t imagined anything. I remembered
too vividly seeing the girl, talking to her. I
could describe her to the last detail, recall
every word we’d exchanged.

I got to my feet, sorely puzzled. But of
this much I was determined: on the mor-
row I would revisit the Museum of Indus-
try.

M Y ACTIONS on the next day would
undoubtedly have been amusing to
anyone save myself. I returned to the Mu-
seum, but for hours I pottered about, visit-
ing every exhibit except A STREET IN
1905.

You may wonder that I didn’t go there
immediately. It was like this with me. For
the first time in months, my curiosity was
thoroughly aroused, and I had a consum-
ing interest in life. And so I was deter-
mined to savor it as long as possible. I hesi-
tated to return to the exhibit for fear I
should find an empty motorcar containing
no pretty girl, no mystery, nothing. I not
only feared it, I expected it. And I knew,
and was afraid, of the sick disappointment
I’d feel when I learned it had all been an
illusion.

There was one thing I meant to find out
first, if I could. Accordingly I made my

way to the office of the director of the Mu-
seum on the top floor. I paused outside the
door lettered: Albert J. Hawkes, but finally
brought myself to enter.

Mr. Hawkes was a fussy little man in
his forties. I believe he rather welcomed
my appearance, for he wasn’t very busy.
By indirection, I led the conversation to the
real object of my visit.

"Do you have in your files,” I asked,
"the names of the original owners of the
cars in A STREET IN 1905?”

"In some instances, yes, Mr. Ellis. Where
the owner kept the car for years, finally
donating it himself to the Museum. Some-
times, though, the cars were bought from
dealers specializing in such things — in
which case, they’d probably changed hands
many times.”

"I’d like to find out, if possible, who
owned the Pope-Hartford runabout now in
the exhibit.”

"May I ask why?”

I had no intention of telling him the
truth. And I was determined to avoid all
mention of Lucy, for I wanted no doubts
raised as to my sanity. I thought I knew
what to expect, after my experience of the
day before with the guards.

So I answered evasively, "I once owned
a car very like it. It would please me to
think it was my car that had come to rest
here.” Though I knew very well it was
not my car. Mine had been demolished in
an accident years before.

Hawkes nodded, with a tolerant smile
for my vanity. He spoke into the inter-
office annunciator, and presently his secre-
tary brought in a file.

But I was doomed to disappointment.

Hawkes looked through the file, and
shook his head regretfully. "I’m sorry, Mr.
Ellis. The Pope-Hartford runabout was
bought from a dealer down in Indiana who
was going out of business.”

I hid my disappointment as well as I
could, and shortly afterward took my
leave, prepared to forget the whole thing.
But after I’d lunched in the basement cafe-
teria, I found I couldn’t bring myself to
leave the Museum without another visit to
A STREET IN 1905.

It was just as I’d remembered from yes-
terday — the red-cobbled pavement, the

82

WEIRD TALES

shop-windows, the motorcars that were a
far cry from today’s streamlined models.

I’m not ashamed to confess that my heart
was pounding as I approached the Pope-
Hartford runabout.

But I needn’t have feared.

For she was there, still looking impa-
tiently^off to the right, her expectant ex-
pression a little strained by now, her eyes
seemingly a little tired.

Her smile for me was absent-minded.

“I'm sorry I left you so abruptly yester-
day,” I apologized. "1 was taken suddenly
ill.”

“Yesterday?” She frowned slightly.
"Why, you’ve only been gone a second.”

I scarcely heard her. I had so little time.
The guard was not in sight but he might
reappear at any moment. And I had no
wish to attract his attention again. I said,
“Won’t you tell me how you happen to be
here in the Museum?”

“Museum?” She cocked her head like an
inquisitive bird. “I don’t understand you.”

I GESTURED around, impatiently. "But
surely you can see? We’re here in the
Museum of Industry. In the exhibit called
A STREET IN 1905. You’re garbed in the
clothing of forty years ago. You’re sitting
in a car that’s forty years old.”

“But — that’s silly! My clothes are brand-
new. And so is the car.” She looked at me
in faint alarm.

"This is 1945,” I insisted. "Why, the
Museum itself wasn’t built forty years
ago.”

She was cowering away from me.
“Please go away!” she begged. “You
frighten me. Nothing of what you say is
true.”

“But it is, it is!” I was growing excited.
“Look about you! Who are you? What
are you doing here?”

“Stop it, stop it!” She was really
frightened now. Her eyes were wide with
terror. "This is no Museum. We’re here
on the graveled driveway. There’s the
porte-cochere overhead! There’s the door to
my father’s house! Oh, I wish Arthur would
come! He’ll — he’ll hit you! Yes, he will,
for scaring me so! You’re a horrible old
man!”

“I’m telling you the truth!” I was almost

beside myself. I was shouting in my effort
to convince her. I was waving my arms
wildly, when I felt myself grabbed roughly
from behind.

“See here now, sir!” It was Mullen, back
again. "You’ll have to stop this!”

There were ten or twelve people behind
him, all staring curiously, speaking together
in alarmed whispers the while they eyed
me apprehensively. Then a portly little man
was pushing them aside, bustling forward
importantly.

It was Hawkes, the Museum director.

“What’s all this to-do, Mullen?” he
asked the guard testily.

"It’s this old gentleman, Mr. Hawkes.
He’s creating a disturbance. He was in
here yesterday and was taken ill, raving
about some girl he said he could see in this
car. He’s probably harmless enough, but a
little — you know.” Mullen made a circular
motion with his forefinger at the side of
his head.

"I’m not crazy!” I sputtered, outraged.
“I’m only trying to convince the young
lady in the car here — ”

"Come now, my dear sir, we simply can’t
have this sort of thing going on here in the
Museum at all.” Mr. Hawkes laid his hand
gently enough on my arm. “There’s no
young lady in the car, as anyone can see
for himself.”

I looked around. The others present
were nodding their heads in agreement. I
forced myself to speak quietly.

"Just a minute, please.” I shook off
Hawkes’ hand, and turned to the girl in the
car. “Lucy, please believe that I have no
desire to frighten you. But all that I told
you is true. There are a dozen other people
here besides myself. Can you see them?”

She shook her head doubtfully. “Only
you.”

"And they can’t see you. I’m the only
one who can.”

She sensed at last the sincerity in my
voice. She must have. Sick dismay was
dawning in her eyes. “But then — what has
happened to me?” Terror replaced dismay.
“I’m afraid. Afraid! Oh, can’t someone
help me?” She looked about imploringly.
Then, with a strangled sob, she covered
her face with her hands and began to weep
hopelessly, hunching her shoulders like a

THE SILVER HIGHWAY

83

forlorn bird in the rain trying to cover
itself with its wings.

If I had had only a moment more then,
I think I might have learned the truth. But
Hawkes was tugging impatiently at my
arm.

"Really now, sir,” he stuttered. "I must
insist that you leave. It’s for your own
good. I feel you are unwell.”

I did what I could. I protested vehe-
mently. I gave them my card bearing my
name and address, and begged that they in-
vestigate me. But they ignored my request.
Hawkes and Mullen tightened their grips
on my arm. They wanted only to get rid
of me, to get me out of the Museum, pre-
sumably before I grew violent. And I
knew that, try as I would to enter again, I
was barred from the Museum forever
more. They’d give out my description to
all guards, and I’d be denied entrance at
the door.

Gently they hustled me from the exhibit.
I strained my eyes, looking back through
the dimness. The last I saw of her, Lucy
was still huddled there in her finery, crying
quietly, hopelessly, on the front seat of the
Pope-Hartford runabout.

I RETURNED home, common sense tell-
ing me I should try to dismiss from my
mind the whole affair. But I slept poorly
that night and next day I knew it was use-
less. I couldn’t forget the sick despair in
Lucy’s eyes. I’d torn the veil, destroying
her illusion of happiness. I must tear it
yet a little more, trying to learn die truth.
I must help her, or I’d never rest peace-
fully.

There was only one thing to do. Investi-
gate for myself. The problem was where
to begin. It seemed hopeless. The trail
was so old. And then it occurred to me
that surely there couldn’t have been many
Pope-Hartford runabouts on the road in
1905. And hardly more than one whose
owner’s first name was Arthur. To be sure,
the car may never have been registered in
this city, but that was the chance I had to
take.

Luckily, this city is the capital of the
state. I looked up the address of the license
bureau and went down there. They weren’t
eager to look through their files for com-

paratively ancient and dusty tomes, but a
greenback discreetly slipped into the hand
of one of the attendants gained me entrance
to the vault itself where the books were
kept. After a prolonged search, I found
the volume of registrations for 1905.

Going through the book was slow work
and tedious, for there were more cars reg-
istered that year than one would have sup-
posed. But at last I found it. A Pope-
Hartford runabout registered in the name
of Arthur H. Comstock of 194 Beverley
Drive.

I dropped in at the nearest drugstore and
looked at the telephone directory. And here
I drew a blank. There was no Arthur H.
Comstock listed in the directory at all.

Well, that was that. Dejectedly I boarded
a streetcar for home. But I hadn’t gone
two blocks before I was excitedly ringing
tlie bell to stop the car. Of course! The
suburban directory! After all, forty years
had elapsed. The man might have followed
the trend to the suburbs.

My hunch was proved right. There was
an Arthur H. Comstock on Roscommon
Place, out in Glen Oaks. I was shaking
with excitement and hope as I boarded the
interurban.

A FILIPINO man-servant admitted me to
Arthur Comstock’s home after taking
my card, vanishing for minutes, and return-
ing with his employer’s permission to let
me in.

Comstock was perhaps five years younger
than myself — a tall, thin man with white
hair, cold eyes, and an embittered expres-
sion on his face. He was wearing a dinner
jacket, and on the left lapel was a decora-
tion I recognized — the tiny bright red rib-
bon of the Legion of Honor.

He was standing before the fireplace
looking at my card in a puzzled manner as
I entered diffidently, but he thawed enough
to ask me to sit down. Now that I was
there, I felt decidedly uncomfortable and
at a loss as to know just how to begin.

There was nothing else to do. I plunged.
"Mr. Comstock, I believe you were once
the owner of a Pope-Hartford runabout?”
I was hardly prepared for his reaction to
my question. For a second he looked
stunned, then ill. He turned the color of

84

WEIRD TALES

unset cement. And then the angry red
surged into his face.

"Who are you?” he clipped. "What do
you mean by coming in here and asking — ”

I said, "Please. Won’t you hear me out?
I’ve been very much disturbed these last
few days. Do you know that the car, which
I believe to be yours, is on exhibit in the
Museum of Industry?”

His eyes were fixed on me coldly. "I
know nothing about it. I sold it long ago.
But, even so, I can’t possibly conceive your
object — ”

He broke off. But he seemed rather
wary. Anyone could guess that in ^>me
manner the Pope-Hartford runabout had
played an important part in his life. It had
been more than a means of transportation
or source of pleasure. And because I sensed
this so very strongly it gave me the courage
to go on.

'Is there any reason,” I asked, "why
someone should be waiting for you in the
Pope-Hartford runabout? A young girl, in
a linen duster, with an emerald veil? A
girl with hazel eyes and soft brown hair?
A girl named — Lucy?”

I stopped, appalled. Comstock was star-
ing at me. His mouth was opening and
closing soundlessly. And on his face there
was a well-nigh indescribable expression.
An expression compounded weirdly of
horror and nausea and malevolence. For a
moment I thought he meant to attack me.
And then he collapsed, utterly and com-
pletely. I was never more alarmed in my
life.

There was a decanter on a stand, next to
the divan on which he’d fallen. I took it
upon myself to pour him a drink, place it
in his shaking hands. He tried to refuse it.
He kept shaking his head, like a man with
palsy.

"Get out!” he muttered hoarsely. "Get
out! I don’t know who you are, but — ”

"I had no idea — ” I began helplessly,
guiltily. My own hands were shaking in
reaction.

By a visible effort, he regained control of
himself, and his face was an icy mask of
barely restrained fury and resentment.
"You’re a feature writer, I suppose,” he
sneered. "Anything for a story. Raking
over the dust of forty years like a ghoul,

exposing the grief and unhappiness of
others to earn a miserable dollar for your-
self. Get out of my house!”

I stood my ground. I’d started this and
I meant to finish it.

"I’m as unhappy about this as yourself,”
I said. "I’ve had no rest for two days —
not since she spoke to me in the Museum.”

A ND quickly, before he could halt me, I
poured out the story of the girl in the
exhibit. He listened. Unwillingly at first,
but he listened. And as 1 hurried on eager-
ly, my words almost tripping over them-
selves in my haste, I could see reluctant be-
lief begin to dawn in his eyes, to grow,
until at last he was listening raptly with a
far-away look on his face. I knew he was
no longer even aware of my presence. I
knew he believed.

"Lucy,” he said softly. "Lucy!"

"You can’t misunderstand me now,” I
finished. "What would be my object in
making up so preposterous a story? What
have I to gain? Surely you can see it’s only
for my own peace of mind that I’ve per-
sisted in following up what clues I had?”
He said heavily, "Sit down, Mr. — Ellis.”
"You do know the girl?” I asked eager-
ly. "There is some story about the Pope-
Hartford runabout?”

His face was drawn and haggard as he
nodded. "Yes. She was my wife. Forty
years ago, Mr. Ellis, we were married. The
reception was held at her father’s house. I
parked the Pope-Hartford runabout under
the porte-cochere at the side. It was new;
I’d just bought it for our honeymoon trip.
Our friends knew nothing about it. They
thought we were leaving in the carriage at
the front door. The carriage was only a
decoy, of course, for them to tie their signs
and tin cans on.”

He had a faint smile for the memory of
that past gaiety.

"Well, the plan was that I should hold
them back, while Lucy changed into her
going-away clothes, and slipped down a
back stairway to wait for me in the car. I'd
join her there, and then we’d be off, giving
our friends the slip — ”

The faint smile had faded. And I’ve
never seen such sadness in the eyes of a
human being.

THE SILVER HIGHWAY

"And then?” I prompted softly. Though
I really didn’t need to hear.

He looked at me numbly. "When I
joined her, she was sitting erect in the front
seat. I thought she had fallen asleep. But
when I touched her gently to awaken her,
she slumped forward. She was dead, Mr.
Ellis, of a heart attack brought on by the
excitement. Dead, and we hadn’t yet begun
to live! I’d loved her deeply. I was nearly
insane in my grief.”

His hands opened emptily, and he sighed.
"Well, and that was the end of it, the shat-
tering of a dream. As for the car, I couldn’t
stand the sight of it. I never wanted to see
it again. It lay there in her father’s drive-
way for weeks until finally I had someone
tow it away, and it was sold. And that was
the last I ever heard of it. But now —
now — ”

He looked at me bleakly. "I’ve never
been able to believe in a life after death,
Mr. Ellis. In my bitterness at losing Lucy,
I've lived life to the full, plunging into
experiences sometimes sordid, grabbing any-
thing I cared to take, feeling it was no
more than my due. Because Life itself, you
sec, had cheated me of the only thing I’d
ever really wanted. But if I thought Lucy
had been waiting faithfully all these years,
while I — ” He winced, and added, low,
“Ah, what must she think of me?”

I glanced away. It seemed indecent to
look at the naked pain in his face. I said,
"I wish you’d go to the Museum with me
tomorrow afternoon. Will you?”

And he said, "Yes.” But his voice was
dull. As dull as his eyes.

I left him there alone. And though he’d
made the appointment with me readily
enough for the next afternoon, I felt die
first faint qualms of distrust. Had he been
right? Were it better I had not stirred up
the dust of forty years?

And oh! would Lucy see him?

I DREAMED of her tiiat night. Or was
it a dream? There was the gentlest of
caresses upon my cheek, the lightest of but-
terfly kisses. My hand went up to touch
the spot where warm pink lips had rested
briefly.

"Thank you!” she said. “Oh, thank you!”
It was Lucy’s voice. And she was happy.

8T

I couldn’t doubt it. Her happiness was
almost a tangible thing. And suddenly I
knew. And suddenly it no longer mattered
that I was slowly dying. For Death, I knew
at last, was not an awesome thing, a specter
to be feared. Why, Death could be beauti-
ful! You had only to hear Lucy’s voice to
know.

But why was she thanking me?

Jf^aj it a dream?

It was in the morning that Mrs. Lang-
don, my landlady, knocked at my door.
“Some gentlemen to see you, Mr. Ellis.”

Her voice seemed to waver uncertainly on
the world "gentlemen,” and she looked at
me strangely when I opened my door.
“They’re waiting for you in the parlor, sir.”

There was something odd about her man-
ner, but I went directly downstairs. Two
policemen were standing there. And with
them was Hawkes, the director of the Mu-
seum of Industry.

“This is the man,” he said to the police-
men upon my appearance.

"What’s wrong?” I asked.

One of the officers spoke up. "I’ll tell
you frankly, sir, we have no warrant for
your arrest. But we think it’d be to your
own interest to come along with us for
questioning.”

“But I’m expecting a caller,” I protested.

"I’m sorry, Mr. Ellis,” Hawkes said. “But
I know you’ll find this more important. It
isn’t that we suspect you, exactly — after all,
there’s the question of your age — and,
frankly — ”

He was growing incoherent. He broke
off, mopped his brow. “I detest mystery!”
he said fretfully, and looked at me as if
something were my fault.

My curiosity was such, by now, that I
would have accompanied them any place.
But they took me only to the Museum of
Industry, up the familiar marble steps, into
the private office of Mr. Hawkes.

And behind Hawkes’ desk sat a man
they introduced as Inspector Shrewsbury.
On his right sat the guard, Mullen.

"That’s the man!” Mullen cried excited-
ly as I entered. "The one who was hang-
ing around the car, acting so funny.”

I said quietly, "Perhaps if you’ll be good
enough to tell me what this is all about — ?”

Inspector Shrewsbury was eyeing me in-

86

WEIRD TALES

tcntly. ‘'The Pope-Hartford automobile, in
which you were so interested, was stolen
during the night.”

‘'Stolen?” I hadn’t quite expected that.
"But — ”

"Exactly!” cried little Mr. Hawkes ex-
citedly. "I tell you, it’s impossible! The
Museum’s doors are locked, the guards, the
alarm system — ” He was growing inco-
herent again. "The car couldn’t have been
stolen!”

"Yet,” Shrewsbury pointed out gently,
"the car is gone. We’d like you to tell us,
Mr. Ellis, just why you were so interested
in that particular automobile.”

I WAS shaken. I knew they’d never be-
lieve my story. But there was nothing
for it. I asked if I might sit down, and
then I told them all I knew about the Pope-
Hartford runabout. Told them of my in-
vestigations, and my interview with Arthur
Comstock, omitting no detail — every least
word exchanged with Lucy and Arthur,
every minute detail of their appearance,
even to the French decoration Arthur wore
in his lapel. I flatter myself that mine is a
photographic memory, despite my age.

They listened in silence until I had fin-
ished.

"If you call Mr. Comstock, I’m sure he’ll
be glad to verify everything I’ve said,” I
ended.

Shrewsbury and Hawkes and Mullen ex-
changed glances. Plainly they all enter-
tained doubts of my sanity. Nevertheless,
Shrewsbury pulled the desk phone toward
him and dialed.

When his call was answered, he asked
for Mr. Comstock. And then it seemed to
me he listened for minutes without saying
a word, while my tension mounted. He

had a poker face, but his eyes narrowed
as he listened.

"Did you know Mr. Comstock well?” he
asked when he’d hung up finally.

I knew something was wrong. "I never
met him before last night. Tell me, what
has happened?”

Shrewsbury hesitated, then shrugged.
"Comstock shot and killed himself, some-
time just before dawn.”

I think I must have known what his an-
swer would be. I felt no shock. But there
was something —

Lucy. Where was Lucy?

"I’d like to go to A STREET IN 1905,”
I said.

Wordlessly they accompanied me. And
there on the cobbled street was the vacant
space where the Pope-Hartford runabout
had stood. Seemingly it had vanished into
thin air.

Only the four wooden blocks that had
held it yet remained.

But I hoped. I hoped that somewhere,
some place, two light-hearted people were
riding down that silver highways — to happi-
ness.

I told them so. Shrewsbury, Mullen, and
Hawkes.

“Of course, I don’t expect you to believe
me,” I said defensively.

But I didn’t really care. 1 believed. What
did it matter if they —

Shrewsbury stood motionless, staring
thoughtfully down at the red cobblestones.
Then he uttered a wordless exclamation,
and stooped in the dim light to pick up
something. When he stood erect again, he
held out his hand.

And resting on the palm of it was the
tiny bright red ribbon of the Legion of
Honor. . . .

Coming in the July WEIRD TALES .......

A hair-raising new novelette by

, MANLY WADE WELLMAN

Also

Jim Kjelgaard Stanton Coblentz

Ray Bradbury

Fear

By ROBERT BLOCH

W ALTER KRAS S used to cut his
fingernails over the kitchen

Ruby would give him hell if she found
any nail parings lying around. Ruby was
like that. She enjoyed giving him hell in
one form or another.

Krass was used to that, after four years
of marriage.

But one afternoon he came home early
from the office and found that Ruby had
gone out. While rummaging around in a
bureau drawer, looking for a tobacco pouch,
Walter Krass happened to find some old
nail parings.

They were imbedded in the body of a
little wax doll— a tiny mannikin with a
mop of brown hair and a curiously familiar
face. ....

Walter Krass recognized his hair in the
doll, and the features had been moulded to
resemble his own.

Then he knew that Ruby was trying to
kill him.

He looked at the little wax figure for a
long moment, then dropped it into the
drawer again and covered it with a pile of
Ruby’s handkerchiefs.

Krass padded out of the bedroom and
sat down in the parlor. His pudgy little
body slumped in the easy chair, and he ran
stubby fingers through his sandy brown
cowlick.

He felt shocked, but not surprised. Ruby
had Cajun blood, and in her hatred of him
she would resort to Cajun superstitions. He
knew she hated him, of course.

But this attempt on his life was another
matter.

It could mean only one thing. Somehow,
Ruby had found out about Cynthia.

Yes. She knew. And her reaction was

Heading by BORIS DOLGOV

You don’t realize ’til you try how

hard it is to chop up the human body
87

88

WEIRD TALES

typical. Ruby would never think of a sep-
aration, or a divorce. She’d rather kill him.

Krass shrugged. He wasn’t worried
about wax images, or herb-poisons, or any
of the childish Cajun methods she might
employ. He could destroy dolls and avoid
eating unusually flavored foods.

But he couldn’t destroy her intention —
her purpose. And sooner or later she would
abandon her silly beliefs and resort to direct
action. A knife, or a bullet. Yes, Ruby
would do just that.

Unless —

Unless he acted first.

Suppose he just quietly turned his assets
into cash and left town with Cynthia some
night?

It was a tempting notion, but of course
it wouldn’t work. Ruby would find him.
She’d put them on his trail; ruin him, ruin
Cynthia. She’d make trouble for him as
long as she lived.

As long as she lived —

Walter Krass snapped his fingers. They
made a curious echoing sound in the room.
Like a death-rattle.

Ruby’s death-rattle, for instance. . . .

R UBY was out shopping again in the
night Walter Krass brought the deep-
freeze unit home.

He hauled it over on the trailer and
sneaked it down to the cellar. It was hooked
up and working by the time she arrived.

Ruby was all set to fix supper, but he sug-
gested she come down to the cellar with
him.

"I have a surprise for you,” he an-
nounced.

Ruby loved surprises.

She lost no time following him down
the cellar stairs. For once, she fairly
bubbled with high spirits, and it pleased
Krass to see her in such good humor.

"Oh Walter, I’m so excited! What can
it be?”

Krass gestured and pointed around the
cellar. "Take a look, Ruby. Notice any-
thing different?”

Then she saw it.

"Walter! Not really? A deep-freeze
unit — just what I’ve always wanted!”

"Like it?”

"Oh, it’s a wonderful surprise, darling!”

Krass stepped back as she bent over the
unit. Then he cleared his throat.

"But that’s not the real surprise,” he
said.

"Isn’t it?”

"No. I have another surprise for you,
Ruby.”

"Another one? What is it?”

"This,” said Krass.

He gave her the real surprise, then. A
poker, in the back of the head.

I T TOOK Krass a long time to do what
he had to do — even though the cleaver
was sharp. He had a pile of old newspa-
pers and some butcher’s paper. It was
necessary to make six separate bundles be-
fore he could fit Ruby’s remains into the
freezing compartment of the small unit.

Krass was glad when he finished and put
the packages in the deep-freeze. He turned
the lock handle and sighed. He had never
realized that chopping up a woman’s body
would be such hard work.

Well, live and learn. . . .

Krass turned and surveyed the cellar.
Everything was in order. A bit of mopping
had done the trick as far as any stains were
concerned. The poker was back in place,
the cleaver was tucked away in the corner
once more, and the papers disposed of
down die drain.

The deep-freeze hummed away, squat-
ting and purring in the gloom like some
monstrous beast that has just dined well.

Walter Krass hummed a bit himself as
he went upstairs. He was sweating, but
merely from exertion — not from fright.
Strange. He’d expected fright, shock, re-
vulsion. Instead, there was just a sense of
relief. Relief at the thought of escaping
Ruby forever; escaping her animal vitality,
her overwhelming energy, her frenzied pos-
sessiveness which used to assume the pro-
portions of a positive aura.

Well, it was over now. And why should
he be afraid? After all, he had a plan, and
a good one.

Now it was time to put that plan into
action.

Krass went straight to the telephone and
called Cyndiia.

She answered immediately; she had been
waiting for die call.

FROZEN FEAR

89

Their conversation was short but sweet.
Krass hung up the receiver knowing that
all was well. They were rolling, now.

Early in the morning, Cynthia would be
taking the train for Reno. She had papers,
photographs, all the necessary items; even
some of Ruby’s clothes that Krass smug-
gled out for her. Cynthia had practised
Ruby’s mannerisms for hours, just as she
concentrated on imitating her handwriting.

It 'was set. Cynthia, travelling under the
name of Mrs. Ruby Krass, would arrive in
Reno, establish residence, and obtain a di-
vorce. Exit, Ruby.

And at this end —

All Krass had to do was wait. Wait for
the summer to end. Wait for house-heat-
ing time. Then, a nice little fire in the
furnace, stoked by six packages from the
deep-freeze unit.

Exit, Ruby.

That was that. Sell the house, clear out,
join Cynthia on the Coast. Everything
was neatly wrapped up — just as neatly as
those packages downstairs in the deep-
freeze.

Krass took a drink on that.

It was too early to go to bed, so he had
another. Then a third. After all, it had
been a strain. He could admit that to him-
self, now. He deserved a little relaxation.
Another drink, for instance —

That fourth drink brought relaxation.
Krass leaned his head back in the armchair.
His eyes closed. His mouth opened. Every-
thing was quiet . . . very quiet. . . .

Except for the bumping.

T HE sound seemed to come from the
stairs — the cellar stairs. The noise
didn’t resemble footsteps at all; just a
butnping. Something was flopping and
thudding, and then it was rolling, rolling
closer and closer.

Ruby’s head rolled into the room.

Just her head.

It stopped about a yard away from where
Krass was slouching in his chair. He could
have stretched out his leg and touched the
upturned face with his foot, if he wanted
to.

He didn’t want to.

The face glared at him, and then the
lips parted. Lips don’t part when the head

is severed — but then, severed heads don’t
roll, either.

But here it was. And the lips were
parted.

Krass heard her whispering.

"Can you hear me, Walter? You think
I’m dead, don’t you? You think you killed
me and locked me away, forever. Well,
you’re wrong, Walter. You couldn’t kill
me. You couldn’t lock me away.

"Oh, you killed my body all right, and
locked that away. But you couldn’t kill my
hate. You can’t lock my hatred away. It
will seek you out, Walter — seek you out
and destroy you!”

S HE was talking nonsense, melodramatic
nonsense. Yes, the head o£ the dead
woman was talking nonsense, all right. But
Krass listened, anyway.

He listened as Ruby’s voice told him
everything. All about his plans with Cyn-
thia. All about her trip, and the divorce,
and selling the house, and going away. She
knew everything, it seemed.

"You meant to keep my body in the
deep-freeze until fall, until you could build
a Are in the furnace and burn it. That was
a clever idea of yours, Walter.

"But it won't work. Because I’m not
staying in that deep-freeze. My hatred
won’t let me. We Cajuns know how to
hate, Walter. And we know how to kill
— even from beyond the grave!

"You don’t dare run away from this
house and leave my body here. And you
don’t, dare to build a fire until fall comes.
It would arouse suspicion.

"So you’re trapped here, Walter. Trap-
ped, do you hear?”

Walter Krass didn’t hear. The words
were lost in the sound of his own gasp-
ing. It was the gasping that caused him
to awake.

The minute he opened his eyes he knew
it was a dream. There was nobody there
with him — no head staring up.

But he had to be sure, quite sure.

That was why he went back down into
the cellar. He cursed himself for a drunken,
over-imaginative fool the minute he
switched on the light down there. Natural-
ly, everything was all right.

The deep-freeze hummed its merry

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little song over in the corner. The lock
was still set.

Just out of curiosity, Krass turned the
lock handle and slid the door back.

A wave of cold air hit his face as he bent
and examined the packages. Nothing was
missing, of course. All six of the bundles
were still there.

Except that the big package ... the
round package . . . the one Krass had put
on the bottom . . . was now right on top!

K RASS got out of the cellar, fast, but
not until he made sure that the deep-
freeze was securely locked once more.

By the time he got upstairs again he
knew it was just a mistake. It had to be. It
was just a nightmare — the voice of his own
conscience.

The next morning Krass felt all right
again. He phoned Cynthia’s apartment.
No answer. That was good — it meant she
had really left fpr Reno. Things would
work out now, if only he kept his nerve.

He put down the telephone and went
out to the kitchen to make breakfast.

It was then that he saw it, lying on the
floor near the cellar steps.

It wasn’t much to look at. Just a little
strip of butcher’s paper — a little, bloody
strip of butcher’s paper that might have
come off a bundle of meat!

Krass was a brave man. He didn’t gasp,
or faint, or hide under the bed.

He marched down the steps into the
cellar and opened the deep-freeze unit. He
didn’t have to unlock it — it was unlocked.

There were only five packages in the
unit now.

One of the bundles was missing!

Krass turned away, hanging onto the
edge of the deep-freeze for support. He
locked it and walked over to the corner to
pick up the cleaver.

Then, cleaver jn hand, he began to
search the cellar.

He didn’t even dare admit to himself
just tv hat he was looking for. It had been
a long, thin package — and he could imagine
something crawling around in the cellar
shadows like a big white snake. But he
couldn’t find it.

After a while, Krass went upstairs. He
still carried the cleaver, just in case. But it

FROZEN FEAR

91

wasn’t upstairs. It wasn’t anywhere. It was
hiding. Yes, hiding.

Sooner or later, he’d fall asleep. Then
it would come out. It would slither across
the floor, wind around his neck and strangle
him.

Yes — it was no dream. Ruby’s body was
still alive down there; alive and filled with
hate.

She was right. Krass couldn’t go away,
because they’d break in sooner or later and
find her there. He couldn’t light a fire,
either, in midsummer.

So he would have to-stay here. That’s
what she wanted. He would stay here and
fall asleep, and then she’d —

No. It mustn’t be that way.

Better to take the risk and run away. If
he was clever, perhaps they wouldn’t find
him. Ruby’s absence was accounted for
by Cynthia, posing as her in Reno.

Maybe if he spread the story of the
"divorce” around and said he was leaving
to follow Ruby and persuade her to re-
turn — that might do the trick. Then he
could meet Cynthia there and they’d hide
out together. They could go to Mexico,
anywhere.

Yes. That was the way. The only way.
And he'd better not wait any longer.

" Trapped , do you hear me?”

Well, he wouldn’t stay trapped. He’d
get out, now.

Krass went upstairs and started packing
his suitcase. There was no time for a care-
ful selection — he took what clothes and
articles he really needed and let the rest
go. He’d travel light and travel fast.

The case held everything he needed, ex-
cept money. That was in the wall-safe in
the dining-room he’d converted into a
"library.”

He lugged his suitcase downstairs to
the hall, set it down, and went into the
library to get the cash. There was about
eight hundred dollars in small bills, plus
his bonds, insurance policies, and bank
book. He’d stop at the bank on his way
to the office. Better think up a good sob-
story for the bunch down there.

It seemed to him, as he turned the corner,
that a shadow scuttled across the floor. But
shadows don’t scuttle. And shadows don’t
make a thumping noise. . . .

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Walter Krass stared down at his suit-
case. It wasn’t locked and closed any more.
It was open. Open — and unpacked!

His clothing lay littered all over the hall
floor.

And from the cellar stairs came the sound
of thumping ... a faint, receding thump-
ing. ...

Yes. Something was crawling back into
the cellar. He couldn’t let it get away this
time. It could open the windows, it could
follow him. But he wouldn’t permit it to
escape!

Krass ran upstairs to the bedroom. He’d
left the cleaver on the bed. This time he’d
make a thorough search. First of all, he’d
take all the rest of the packages out of the
deep-freeze and chop them to bits. Then
he’d find the missing bundle and give it
the same treatment.

Chop everything into little bits. That
was the way!

Panting heavily, he ran down the stairs
and made for the cellar steps. He shifted
the cleaver to his left hand as he clicked
on the cellar light switch. Now he could
see everything down there. Nothing would
escape him. Nothing would escape the
cleaver.

The deep-freeze unit hummed. The
droning seemed to blur into a modcing
frenzy of sound as Krass slid the lid open
and peered down into the cold depths.

It was empty.

The packages were gone. All the pack-
ages were gone!

Krass straightened up. He gripped the
handle of the cleaver and whirled around
to face the cellar walls.

“I’m not afraid,” he shouted. “I know
you’re down here! But I have the cleaver.
Before I leave, I’ll find you — and chop you
into bits!”

A sharp click put a period to his words.

It was the click of the wall-switch at the
head of the stairs. The lights had been
turned out!

“Ruby!” he shrieked. "Ruby — you’ve
turned out the lights. But I’ll find you! I
can still hear you, Rubv!”

It was true. He could hear.

The rustling was all around him. A soft,
brittle sound, like the unwrapping of paper
from a parcel. From several parcels.

FROZEN FEAR

93

There was a slithering, too, and a thump-
ing.

Krass edged back until he stood against
the wall. He whirled the cleaver around
in darkness. He began to swing it in a
wide arc across the floor at his feet.

But the thudding and bumping went on.
It came closer, and closer.

Suddenly Krass began to chop at the floor
with his cleaver. He rasped out great rack-
ing gouts of laughter as he hacked away
at the air.

Something was slithering around behind
him. He felt the coldness all over him
now ... the touch of icy fingers, the kiss
of frigid lips, the clammy caress of a frozen
hand. And then the icy band was tight
around his neck.

The scream was cut off. The cleaver
clattered to the floor. Krass felt the cold-
ness constricting his windpipe, felt himself
falling back into a greater coldness. He
fell into the coldness but he didn’t know,
because everything was freezing, freez-
ing. . . .

I T WAS weeks later when Cynthia was
exposed as an impostor in Reno, and al-
most a month had passed before they actually
broke into the Krass residence.

Even after entering the house, it took
fifteen minutes of preliminary searching be-
fore Lieutenant Lee of the Homicide Squad
went down into the cellar.

Another fifteen minutes were spent in
frantic conjecture and incredulous surmise.

It was then, and only then, that Lee put
through his phone call.

"Hello . . . this Burke? Lee, Homicide.
Yes . . . we're at the house now. Found a
body in the cellar — locked in a deep-freeze
unit.

"No ... it was a man. Walter Krass.
"His wife? Yeah ... we found her, all
right. Chopped into pieces, lying all
around the deep-freeze. All but her right
arm.

"Missing? No, it isn’t missing. It’s on
top of the deep-freeze. I said, it’s on top
of the deep-freeze, holding the lock shut.

"I don’t know how to tell you this ...
but it almost looks like that arm pushed
Walter Krass into the deep-freeze and then
— locked him in!”

ADAM^EVE ROOT

Considered by Many that it

BRINGS GOOD LUCK

Adam and Ere Root Is ono of tho most famous of
alleged LUCK ROOTS. It is believed by many that
a person carrying a pair of these roots will bo very
LUCKY and SUCCESSFUL. Many superstitiously
bollevo that one root acts as an alleged POWERFUL
LUCK CHARM to "attract" Good Luck In Money.
Games. Love. Business, Work. etc., tho other to
"provent" Bad Luck, Losses. Evil, Trouble. Harm,
etc. While we make no supernatural claims, we
GUARANTEE THfSE ROOTS TO BE GENUINE
SPECIMENS OF THE VERY HIGHEST QUAL-
ITY. Satisfaction GUARANTEED or Money Re-
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Without extra coat, with each prepaid order:
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THE H. EL WRITESEL CURIO STUDIO

1365 Bryden Dept. 2-NF Columbus 5, Ohio

MAGAZINES Ca

BtI (BACK-DATED) jV

Maga

Western— Romantic— Movie— Detective— Sports— Comics— Aviation-
Radio — Photography — Physical Culture — Snappy —Art — Foreign-
Technical — etc. Also books, booklets, subscriptions, pin-up photo,
etc. Before ordering scud lot for catalogs to cover mailing charge*.
Dime refund on first order.

CICERONE'S MAGAZINE CENTER
863 First Avenue Dept. 10 New York 17 N. Y.

LINCOLN AND INDIAN HEAD

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) LN PENNIES!

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All rare coins, bills, stamps wanted! Send IOC for lllustratol
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94

WEIRD TALES

What To Do For Pains of

ARTHRITIS

Try This Free *

If yon have never need "Rossc Tabs” for pains of arthritis,
neuritis, rheumatism, we want you to try them at our risk.
We will send you a full-size package from which you are to
use 21 Tabs. FREE. If not astonished at the palliative relief
which you enjoy from your sufferings, return the package
and you owe us nothing. We mean it: SEND NO MONEY.
Just send name and address and we will rush your Tabs
by return mail.

ROSSE PRODUCTS CO.

2703 Forwell Avo. DEPT. 605 Chicago .«5, III.

BUY

MORE

VICTORY

BONDS

Our “Wizard” of Westwood

W E ARE both pleased and proud to have
one of our Weird Tales writers "cop’'
first prize in the recent short story contest
sponsored by Ellery Queen’s Mystery Maga-
zine, competing against many of the best
"big-name’’ authors in this country.

That pleasure and pride is intensified by
the fact that the winner is a long-time con-
tributor to these pages and, in addition, a
good friend of ours and of all Weird Tales’
readers. He is Manly Wade Wellman, who
adorns this magazine with happy regularity.

Wellman’s prize-winning yarn was entitled
A Star for a Warrior and introduced not
only a new detective, but a new kind of de-
tective — an American Indian (a subject on
which, as you customers know, M. W. W.
knows aplenty).

Our feeling on hearing the good news
was, it couldn’t happen to a better guy. Ap-
parently the judges, headed by the eminent
Christopher Morley, thought so too!

Notes on a Ghost

“'VT’OU might be interested to know,”
T. writes Dorothy Quick to us all, "that
I actually met up with The Man in Purple.
He was a real ghost in a real Paris Hotel
and his choking propensities were real too.
I only spent one night in the room, deciding
that one sleepless night was enough!

"I wasn’t brave enough to stay on. How-
ever, some day I may go back and see if he’s
still there. I imagine he is. He seemed a very
persistent kind of a ghost!”

Yes, we’d be interested to hear about The
Man in Purple. Perhaps eventually we can

THE EYRIE

93T

find out — through the investigations 'of
Dorothy Quick, of course. For paraphrasing
the old rhyme, our feeling on ghosts is, we’d
rather hear-about than see one!

NEW MEMBERS

Rose Lee Smith, c/o M. C. Starkey, 035 North 5th St.,
Steubenville, Ohio

William Golden, 70-21 05th Place, Glendale, N. Y.

Kay Haney, Huntsville, Ark.

John A. Smarter, Box 745, Port Neehes. Tex.

Robert Dickhoff. 719 3tli Ave., New York 10, N. Y.
William H. Baxter, Windward Ave., White Plains,
N. Y.

Lewis R. Sale, 209 E. Maple St., Jeffersonville, Ind.
Martha Ann Quinby, 0324 18th N.E., Seattle 5, Wash.
H- Earl Tyler, Box 175, Glasgow, Mont.

Dee Gilis, 191 Clinton St., Brooklyn 2, N. Y.

Irene La France, Belmont Station, Downers Grove, 111.
Billy George, 03S Alahmar Terrace, San Gabriel, Calif.
Betty Campbell, Bube, Que., Can.

Robert Cadwell, 239 High St.. Closter, N. J.

Friend La Bonte, Box 125, Lennoxville, P. Q., Can.
Norman Kagen, 124 Fort George Ave., New York 33,
N. Y.

Charles R. Uphnm, 270 Concession St., Hamilton, Ont.,
Can.

Erma 13. Morehead, 21S5 Leflingwell Rd., Norwalk,
Calif.

Henry Speer, 270 McGregor Ave., Sault Ste. Marie,
Ont., Can.

George M. Gray, Jr., Chapel Hill, Triadelphla, W. Vt.
William J. Ashton, 317 West 13th St., Norfolk, Va.
David F. Usher. 39-12 5Gth St.. Woodside, L. I.. N. Y.
Helen Woznick, Rt. (5, Box 500, Mt. Clemens, Mich.
Calvin John Ilenniger, 9110 14th St.. Detroit 0. Mich.
Pearl Brody, 1065 Townsend Ave., New York 53, N. Y.
Barbara Jones, 402 Kent Rd., Bala-Cynwyd, Pa.

Jack Gruhel, 392 E. 19th St., Pnterson, N. J.

Don Connolly, 127 S. 1st St., Seward, Nebr.

Harry McEliay, Jr., 10720 Maple Leaf Dr., St. John
Woods, Portland, Oregon

Mrs^Quinton Ussery, 52 Shipside Apts., Wilmington,

Alfred J. Quirk. 417 E. 137th St.. New York 54, N. Y.
John F. Gay, III, 1512 N. 30th St., Birmingham 14. Ala.
Donald V. Sharkelton, 7 Maple Ave., Sidnev, N. Y.

L. M. Kreschel, 25 Earl PI., Buffalo 11, N. Y.

Mark Merserean, 9405 Burlington Blvd., Congress
Park, 111.

Kemie Turner. 900 South lltli St., Mt. Vernon. Wn.
John Kraus, 37 Fowler Ave., Lynbrook, N. Y.

Bill Nieman, 174 S. Orange Ave., South Orange, N. Y.

Wo're sorry that lack of space prevents the inclusion
of the names of all New Members. The rest will appear
next time.

^iitm iiiiii itiim in min in 1 1 iiiiii 11(111111111 1 in in 1 1 min leiitimi || inti in iiiiiik

READERS' VOTE I

THE VALLEY OF THE
GODS

THREE IN CHAINS
MIDNIGHT

THE MAN IN PURPLE

THE 8MILING PEOPLE
ONCE THERE WAS AN
ELEPHANT

RAIN. RAIN. GO AWAYI
THE SILVER HIGHWAY

FROZEN FEAR

Here’s a list of nine stories in this issue. Won’t
you let us know which three you consider the
best? Just place the numbers: 1, 2, and 3 respec-
tively against your three favorite tales — then clip
it out and send it to us.

WEIRD TALES

9 Rockefeller Ploxa New York City 20, N. Y.

DC an ARTIST!

— Train at Homo In Your Spare Time

The fascinating field of Art offers commercial opportunities to men
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THIS WISDOM MUST DIE/

"T tilths 'That 4jave Seen
Rented Struggling fjumanitg

F OR every word that has left the lips of bishops or states-
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For every book publicly exposed to the inquiring mind, one
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Are you prepared to demand the hidden facts of life? Will
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Let the Rosicrucians, one of these ancient brotherhoods of
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me ROSICRUCIANS (AMORC)

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/Hdrrrr

Pubas& mention Newsstand Fiction Unit when answering advertisements

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Cl Check" here if under 16 for Booklet A.

Quick help for
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PROOF!

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Never Loses a Day’s Work in Shipyard

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5 Name